Morning Report: Sean O’Malley: ‘Modern day gangster’ Dana White equates starting UFC to Power Slap League

Sean O’Malley — like many — isn’t sold on Dana White’s new Power Slap League.

Aside from discussing his next steps within the UFC bantamweight ranks, the current No. 1 contender in the promotion’s official rankings chatted with White about the boss’ latest project. Just this past month, the Nevada Athletic Commission approved Slap Fighting, opening the door for White and crew’s upcoming eight-episode season of the Power Slap League.

It’s about as cut and dry as a “sport” could get. Knock the opposing player out via slap and victory is achieved. Despite the vast lack of intricacies compared to MMA, White argues defense and technique are involved. Ultimately, the UFC frontman has the same amount of faith in this new venture as he did in the sport that’s gotten him where he is today.

“I sat down with Dana when I went to the UFC,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “Just had a conversation with him. Dana’s like a cool — he’s a different person. He’s just a different breed of human. No cameras around, he’s literally a modern-day gangster, but with legal s***. He was getting fired up.

“That Power Slap — to me, I’m like, ‘That s***’s the dumbest s*** ever. Why would? That’s f***ed up.’ But he’s like promoting his own thing and all that. He was getting fired up. No cameras in there, he wasn’t trying to sell it to me. He was getting fired up talking about it saying he’s getting the same emotions he’s getting from when he first started building UFC. He’s getting the same hate from new people when he was first starting to promote the UFC and people were like, ‘This is barbaric, this is f***ed up, why would they do this?’ Now he’s doing this. He’s just a gangster to be around. He’s a f***ing cool-ass dude.”

Health and safety concerns have been a major detractor for many fans of MMA seeing the start of this concept stateside. Every fan of combat likes a good knockout, but how it’s scored is half of the fun, if not all of it.

Even for a consistent knockout artist like O’Malley, Slap Fighting just isn’t his cup of tea. Resorting to a common phrase, White apparently is under the notion that if you don’t like it, feel free to steer clear.

“Flip the coin, hope to knock ‘em out first,” O’Malley said. “He’s doing a TV show. In his defense, he was like, ‘You don’t have to watch. You don’t have to even do it. If you want to, you can.’ No [I wouldn’t watch]. Maybe. Maybe it’s entertaining.

“Dude, even in the UFC, watching people get knocked out … I’ll watch because I won’t know [it’s coming]. Boom, oh s***. But that’s different. We’ll see. Could be f***ing massive, dude.”

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The MMA Hour.

UFC Orlando promo.

A wonderful debut.

Free fight.

Invicta 50 highlights.

The War Room: Tuivasa vs. Pavlovich.

DJ + CCC Prep.

Teaser.

The essence.

Iron-Diamond.

Sophomore.

Taking it all in.

Killer.

Cat-dog.

Sightseer.

Friendly competition.

Incredible.

The bionic Brit.

That isn’t half-bad.

I think the hilarious thing about this whole concept is that if a UFC fighter did ask to compete in Slap Fighting, they’d probably get told they aren’t allowed to. They’ll never try anyway unless there’s some massive pay incentive. Regardless, I just couldn’t help myself with that poll option. The whole idea of these kinds of weird close-quarter defenseless “fights” has always been impossibly dumb.

Thanks for reading!

Last Week’s Results:

Friday: 97% of 333 total votes answered “No” when asked, “Will you buy tonight’s PFL event?“

Wednesday: 23% of 624 total votes answered “Turkey” when asked, “What is the best part of Thanksgiving?”

Tuesday: 215 of 429 total voters answered “Bellator” when asked, “Which organization would win more fights pitting their champions against each other?”

Monday: 65% of 193 total votes answered “Omari Akhmedov” when asked, “Who wins the PFL light heavyweight championship?” Rob Wilkinson defeated Akhmedov via second-round TKO (doctor’s stoppage) at the 2022 PFL Championship this past Friday.

Today’s exit poll:

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