Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White has created a brand new brutal sport: Power Slap League. In this “sport”, contestants (women and men) slap one another as laborious as they will within the head. A winner is set by judges after three rounds.
This newest violent sport, licensed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, focuses on slapping the pinnacle, with defence expressly forbidden. Competitors aren’t allowed to maneuver in ways in which would possibly blunt the power of the oncoming slap, resembling by elevating their shoulder, tucking their chin or rolling with the slap. They must have their arms behind their again whereas being slapped.
Video footage reveals some contestants twitching on the bottom after being slapped unconscious. And one feminine fighter crashed into the rostrum after being severely concussed.
Power Slap is the most recent sport to be added to the rising record of violent contests, together with wrestling, boxing and cage preventing. The arguments towards violent sports activities are well-rehearsed, but clearly ignored by individuals who promote these contests.
Concussions attributable to blows to the pinnacle or violent shaking of the pinnacle, within the brief time period result in complications, lack of reminiscence, mind fog and confusion. But the long-term results could be extra necessary.
Contestants being knocked out within the Power Slap League.
We mustn’t assume that contributors in Power Slap are unhurt if they don’t maintain apparent indicators of concussion. Repetitive head trauma in beginner boxing causes harm to the nerve cells that may be detected by measuring the leaking of the mind neurofilaments into the cerebrospinal fluid, even when boxers cross cognitive checks. Similar low-level mind harm is more likely to happen in energy slapping, the place the unprotected head is the only goal of the blow.
These repeated gentle head accidents may cumulatively result in an elevated danger of continual mind harm illnesses and presumably neurodegeneration and dementia. As we’ve got seen in boxing, many of the accidents sustained will turn out to be obvious lengthy after the athletes have retired.
Only a matter of time
Extreme violent sports activities also can have excessive outcomes past the lack of cognitive perform. A punch or a slap doesn’t must be exceptionally highly effective to kill any person. A success that’s delivered shortly and at a specific angle may cause torsional forces to the neck and head, injuring the arteries that provide blood to the mind.
There are many examples of one-punch deaths documented by means of the courts. Most neurologists and neurosurgeons, together with myself, have handled the splitting of the neck arteries (dissection) attributable to trauma, and most often, the inflicted trauma was not extreme. Evidence suggests some victims have weaker arteries, others have been simply unfortunate when it comes to the route or rotation of the power utilized to their neck and head.
While it might be uncommon, replicating the situations for such an occasion is insanity. While risking severe mind harm is unacceptable, it is just a matter of time earlier than the sport will lead to a one-slap loss of life. It will take solely a second, however it would smash many individuals’s lives. Is it actually price it for a measly purse of £3,200 per bout in the event you win?
In response to criticism about security on the first Power Slap occasion on the Columbus Convention Center on March 5 2022, Dana White has replied: “The fee is engaged on it. Everyone is in a studying course of proper now. They have discovered loads because the March occasion and u will see that because the present goes on.”
Nikos Evangelou receives funding from the NIHR, MRC, MS Society, and different analysis organisations and business sponsors.
