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VanZant hasn’t fought in MMA since 2020, and doesn’t think she’ll ever return due to the risk of injury.

Don’t expect to see UFC fighter turned reality star turned bare knuckle boxer turned OnlyFans model turned Power Slapper Paige VanZant fighting in the cage again.

VanZant is set to return to Dana White’s Power Slap league on Thursday, October 24th when the promotion rolls into Abu Dhabi during UFC 308 Fight Week. She won her first slap-off back in June 2024, earning a unanimous decision win over Christine Wolmarans. Next weekend she’ll face off against Chelsea Dodson, the wife of former UFC flyweight John Dodson.

What she won’t be doing is getting back into MMA. In a new interview with MMA Junkie Radio, VanZant explained why.

“I don’t ever like to say I’m closing the door 100%, but I do see it would be hard for me to go back into MMA,” she said. “Not because I don’t love it, or not because I don’t have a passion for it still. But like I said, I broke my arm five times in my life and four times in basically two years of competing. I had two surgeries on it, and I still have a huge plate that runs the length of my entire forearm.”

“So just going back to that place of risking breaking my arm again and having surgery again and getting set back? I can still have the thrill of competing, and I can still get that rush without putting my body at risk. I’m fine if I break my arm, it’s really just the mental fortitude, I don’t know if I can push through that again. It was a really, really rough few years.”

Now VanZant is satisfied with the rush Power Slap provides, and insists there is a training and development portion to the ‘sport.’

“You can train a little bit,” Paige said. “Like, I let my husband hit me in the face with the pool noodle just so you practice having something coming at your face extremely quickly.”

“And then just trying to figure out a plan for how you’re gonna take it, if it’s best for your body to close your eyes, if it’s best to keep your eyes completely open, if it’s best to follow the slap or follow their hand, to basically try to watch it make impact with your face.”

“Everybody’s body and body reactions are gonna be different,” she concluded. “So just learning what works best for you.”

The hardest part of Power Slap for Van Zant is the ‘no flinching’ rule, which she did several times in her debut and got called on once.

“I think as you see professional fighters coming over — boxing, boxers, MMA fighters — you are gonna see that flinching foul happen,” she said. “Because as much as we don’t want to flinch, it’s our body mechanics. It’s ingrained in our muscle memory.”

Once again, it comes down to training (aka more pool noodles to the face).

“You can flinch forward. You can, like, flinch down and brace, but you just can’t flinch away from the hit. So, it’s a learning process. And for the first one, I think I did absolutely great.”

PVZ vs. Dobson goes down at the Space42 Arena in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, October 24th. Tune into MMAMania.com for all the highlights, plus news from UFC 308 which goes on later that weekend on Saturday afternoon, October 26th.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Francis Ngannou has won a lot of fights. The toughest battle he’ll face for the rest of his life is one that he can only survive, but can’t actually win.

Making his PFL debut just six months after Ngannou’s 15-month-old son Kobe died tragically, the former UFC heavyweight champion was unsure about his future Saturday night. Despite all the accomplishments he racked up over the years, Ngannou just wasn’t the same person after losing his son, and he couldn’t help but question if perhaps his fighting career was over.

“It was my biggest challenge in the way that I wasn’t the person that I used to be,” Ngannou said after his win over Renan Ferreira on Saturday. “Coming into this fight, this fight was also a way for me to find out if I can still fight. If I still have it. Something like that.

“If I can deal with this, the pressure, with the fight week, with the media and everything. We got through [it].”

All of Ngannou’s questions were answered once he got in the cage and delivered a vintage performance after he took Ferreira down early in the opening round and then delivered a vicious ground-and-pound finish. It took him less than four minutes to dispatch the PFL’s top heavyweight and get his first win since beating Ciryl Gane back in 2022.

Ngannou was understandably overwhelmed with emotion after the fight was over as he fought back the tears while dedicating the victory to his son.

While it was a physically dominant performance, Ngannou felt the toughest obstacles he had to overcome before Saturday came down to the mental warfare happening inside his own head.

“It was pretty hard,” Ngannou said. “It was hard at any moment from the beginning to the end, but I think it’s one of those things, you ask yourself is it ever going to be over? You think it might never be over. You just might as well learn how to roll with it, to live with it. Because in certain cases, I would have taken time to grieve but how long would that take?

“I don’t think there’s enough time for me to do that. I don’t think a lifetime would be enough to grieve. Is it just about keep going? It’s a new way of living that I have to learn.”

Enduring and surviving the past six months forced Ngannou to show the kind of strength he didn’t think was possible. Ngannou says nothing could possibly prepare him for what he’s gone through, but he eventually found a way to step out of the darkness into the light.

“They’ve been telling me that I’m tough to the point that I get to believe that I am tough,” Ngannou said. “Then I recently just found out that I wasn’t tough. I wasn’t that tough.

“I’ve seen people going through it, and out of compassion, I’ve been trying to understand how it must feel, but you never get anywhere close to how it feels exactly.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Think you can figure out which UFC fighter we’re talking about? You’ll get five clues to figure him out.

We’re back for another day of the SB Nation UFC in-5 daily trivia game, and we’re switching to a system of a new article each day for the game.

We tried using a single article for the game, updated with the latest game each day, but it was creating a bit of an unwieldy experience in the comments. So, we’ll have the current day’s game plus the previous three days in each new article. That way, you can catch up if you miss a day.

Game instructions are at the bottom if you’re new to the game!

What we need from you

1. Play the game
2. Share your result in the comments and on social media
3. Provide feedback (Google Form or in comments below)

Today’s UFC in-5 game

Saturday’s UFC in-5 game

Friday’s UFC in-5 game

Thursday’s UFC in-5 game

The goal of the game is to guess the correct random UFC fighter player with the help of up to five clues. We’ll mix in BOTH ACTIVE AND RETIRED FIGHTERS. It won’t be easy to figure it out in one or two guesses, but some of you might be able to nail it. It will be a mix of well-known players and some “that guys” that we haven’t thought of in some time. The game will appear in slot #3 of the MMA Fighting layout each morning, with occasional movement later in the day.

After you correctly guess the player, you can click “Share Results” to share how you did down in the comments and on social media.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

UFC

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Francis Ngannou reminded MMA fans how vicious he can be in the cage as he absolutely steamrolled Renan Ferreira, knocking him unconscious in the first round of the PFL: Battle of the Giants pay-per-view event in Saudi Arabia. Where does Ngannou go from here, and is that even a fair question to ask with everything the former UFC champ has gone through?

Following Saturday’s PFL event, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and E. Casey Leydon react to Ngannou’s incredible performance in his first MMA fight in nearly three years, the emotion that came over him and his team, his game plan, and Ferreira filling a pivotal role. Additionally, they discuss the fantastic co-main event between Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco, where Cyborg goes from her win, how a hypothetical fight between Cyborg and Kayla Harrison would go, Paul Hughes’ big upset win over A.J. McKee, if Hughes should face Usman Nurmagomedov next, and more.

Catch the PFL: Battle of the Giants post-fight show above. An audio-only version of the show can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your pods.

MMA Fighting – All Posts