Despite being critically panned, Dana White’s Power Slap League will move forward with plans to close out its first season on pay-per-view.
The Power Slap finals will air live from The UFC APEX in Las Vegas on March 11 according to a report from Sports Illustrated. The event will bear witness to the crowning of the first-ever Power Slap champions in four different weight classes including heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, and welterweight. Headlining the event will be a heavyweight title matchup between Darius “The Destroyer” Mata-Varona and “Wolverine” Ron Bata, the two head coaches of Power Slap: Road to the Title.
Emanating from The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas that same evening, the UFC will air a Fight Night card headlined by former bantamweight champion Petr Yan and No. 3 ranked contender Merab Dvalishvili.
Bro this is just sad, they get paid $2k and $2k for this, the poor guy stiff as a board on the floor didn’t even get a chance and now goes home with $2,000 and CTE we can’t support this 🤦🏻♂️ #PowerSlap #UFC pic.twitter.com/9D9phc7wK7
— Jordan the casual (@mmanews710) January 24, 2023
Power Slap Brings the Heat in its March PPV Debut
On January 18, Power Slap debuted on the TBS network to little fanfare, bringing in a lowly 290,000 viewers. Dana White’s latest creation did see a glimmer of hope in its second episode as the estimated number of viewers jumped up to 413,000. Despite the improvement, the number is still somewhat of a disappointment considering Power Slap’s lead-in program All Elite Wrestling brought in over a million viewers.
The UFC president has certainly done himself no favors in trying to gain viewership for the program, telling critics, “If you don’t f*cking like it, don’t watch it.” White has also suggested people “watch The Voice” if they take issue with seeing individuals subjected to sanctioned brain trauma on a weekly basis.
While Power Slap’s numbers have improved in ratings, it remains to be seen if people are willing to shell out their hard-earned money to watch people slap one another on pay-per-view.
