UFC Bantamweight contender Sean O’Malley talked about Dana White’s new venture “Power Slap” recently. O’Malley shared his thoughts on the said venture on his Youtube channel. The venture garnered mixed reactions from UFC fans and O’Malley is the first UFC athlete to express doubts about it.
Sean O’Malley is a fan of Dana White but doesn’t see the logic in his new business venture:
“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***.”
It was clear he couldn’t see what makes this attractive for UFC and White. T
“That Power Slap — to me, I’m like, ‘That s***’s the dumbest s*** ever. Why would I? 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.”
O’Malley further explained that it lacks the surprise factor you see at a UFC event. While he underplayed its potential, he still kept an open mind that the “Power Slap” can be big.
“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. “
O’Malley’s criticism comes after Joe Rogan expressed doubt about the concept.
“I love Dana, and I would be a hypocrite if I said I wouldn’t watch this, because I will watch it – but this is not my cup of tea.”
“What I like it problem solving. I like puzzles. What I like is (Sean O’Malley) and (Petr) Yan. This f**king Russian assassin is rushing the gates and you’re kicking and moving away and jab at him. That’s what I like. I love technique.”
Of course this is considerably softer than what Rogan said prior to UFC’s involvement: