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By now, you’ve surely heard how universally, impossibly, astronomically, larger than space and time itself, that Dana White’s precious side project, Power Slap, is. If not, don’t worry, the man himself will gladly tell you all about it and then some.

More people have seen and watched Power Slap than there are currently on Earth. That’s how it feels every time White hypes up the United States-based slap-fighting product, anyway.

Alright, let’s not beat around the bush. According to UFC’s CEO, Power Slap is untouchable in terms of sport’s viewership.

“What if I did this, made it an actual sport, got it sanctioned, and put good production value behind it?” White said on FLAGRANT, recalling seeing his first slap match. “The answer is f—kin’ billions of views. Billions of views globally.

“Think about this,” he continued. “ We started this thing 15 months ago, right? Right now, on YouTube, we got more subscribers than NHL (National Hockey League), MLS (Major League Soccer), NASCAR (racing), PGA (Professional Golfer’s Association), Barstool Sports. We have over a billion YouTube views. Eight of the top 12 largest YouTube shorts against other major sports are Power Slap. Four of the top five largest YouTube shorts on UFC’s channel. We’re No. 1, 2, 3, and 4 on UFC. When you think about Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, Brock Lesnar, all the big stars, this thing absolutely dominates. We have more followers than every single professional sport. Every professional sports team, we have more followers than them in 15 months. I don’t know about the soccer teams, but I would say yes.”

Okay, that is pretty damn impressive. Especially in such a short lifespan. Well, that depends on how true those claims are. For the sake of simple comparisons, evaluate each entity mentioned down the list and you’ll see the YouTube subscriber counts of each as follows.

• Power Slap – 2.58M
• NHL – 2.16M
• NASCAR – 1.24M
• PGA – 1.4M
• Barstool Sports – 1.76M

Nice. No lies detected. Now, one billion is a very large number. One of the craziest realizations you can make is the seconds (time) comparison of one million vs. one billion. That equals out to 12 days vs. 31 years. The numbers aren’t as readily visible as subscriber count, but at the top of the list, Power Slap’s YouTube channel’s most viewed video has 2.9 million views with the most viewed short coming in at 369 million. A majority of the shorts atop the view count eclipse the video’s peak, therefore, White surely spoke in overall views between both categories, which is fair, so one billion is believable. The UFC channel shorts claim is also true, it’s just in a different order with a Khabib Nurmagomedov short in the No. 3 spot.

Going through the numbers of every single sports team is a lot of data. Thankfully, we don’t need to. Here are just a few Instagram follower and YouTube subscriber counts (credit to Blaine Henry for the observation).

• Power Slap (Instagram) – 3.9M
• Kansas City Chiefs (American football) – 4.2M (Instagram), 627K (YouTube)
• Real Madrid (Football/soccer) – 162M (Instagram), 13.7M (YouTube)
• Los Angeles Lakers (Basketball) – 24.6M (Instagram), 664K (YouTube)

The number count is admittedly very impressive for Power Slap as it’s just very easily watchable viral content. However, in the end, Taylor Swift is the truly untouchable one in this overall viewership discussion. End of story.

“We have more viewers than any Taylor Swift video ever posted,” White said in summary.

Swift’s Top 5 music videos on YouTube each eclipse the lofty one billion view mark with the following eight above 500 million. The 34-year-old popstar also has 283 million Instagram followers with 59.2 million YouTube subscribers. As the current Baddest Motherf—ker (BMF) champion, Max Holloway, would say: “It is what it is.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

UFC 302 is in the books which means it’s on to UFC Louisville.

Headlined by a middleweight matchup between Jared Cannonier and Nassourdine Imavov, UFC Louisville features 14 competitive fights and the No Bets Barred Boys are here to break them all down.

Co-hosts Conner Burks and Jed Meshew kick things off with a recap of UFC 302 and celebrate Jed finally getting into the black for 2024 after another winning weekend before diving into this week’s fights. Does Jared Cannonier still have enough left in the tank to make one more title run? Will the sad decline of Dominick Reyes continue? Will Raul Rosas Jr. keep impressing against favorable matchups? Plus, Conner and Jed discuss the heightening drama surrounding UFC 303 and whether or not Conor McGregor will actually return to the cage this month.

All this and a lot more are discussed on this week’s episode.

Tune in for episode 90 of No Bets Barred.

New episodes of the No Bets Barred podcast drop every Wednesday and are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts. The latest episode can be heard below.

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Popular online personality The MMA Guru is doing his part to help fighters financially after coming up short on a questionable scorecard.

An unjustified loss can present a huge burden for fighters, especially those still trying to survive on the UFC’s paltry $ 12/$ 12 contract. Unfortunately, it’s become far too frequent of an issue with MMA judges continually handing in controversial scorecards that not only cost a fighter win on their record but half their paycheck.

After a series of judging blunders at UFC 302, The MMA Guru has decided to take matters into his own hands, introducing a “Robbery Insurance Bank” dedicated to fighters who find themselves in the midst of a blatant robbery inside the Octagon.

“In 2025, I’m planning to set up a $ 10k ROBBERY INSURANCE BANK reserved for fighters on their first/second contract that get badly robbed,” he wrote on X. “I can afford 10k per card. New fighters that would otherwise have had a career derailed by an awful decision will get a 10k win bonus from me.”

The MMA Guru Responds to immediate criticism

In a follow-up post on social media, he added:

“I’ll build hype for this with my fans for the rest of the year. Put yo money up in 2025 10k performance bonuses for first/second contract fighters. Could even pay fighters who lost and took damage (broken bone/cuts/KO loss) I think I can fix fighter pay. Video Tomorrow.”

He also responded to some immediate backlash from fans questioning how he would fund such a project.

“People already talking about how this doesnt make sense In 2026-7 this could turn into small 3-5k finishing bonuses for first contract fighters In 2028 who knows what Somebodys gotta get these guys a lil more pay and it’s not gonna happen whining to Dana and on Twitter all day,” he added.

Though he offered little in the way of an explanation for how all of this is expected to work, it sounds like fans can tune into his YouTube channel on Wednesday, June 6 to find out details

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UFC

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

UFC closed two antitrust lawsuits by agreeing to pay out $ 335 million to satisfy grievances from fighters, and now the full settlement agreement has been filed with the courts.

The settlement between the plaintiffs (the fighters) and the defendants (UFC) has already been agreed upon by both parties. The court has now also “provisionally” approved the settlement agreement, which takes the lawsuit one step closer to being closed forever.

Under the terms of the agreement, UFC is expected to put $ 100 million in “an interest-bearing escrow account” three days after the court preliminarily approving the settlement. A second $ 100 million payment will be paid three days after the court finally approves the settlement or on Nov. 1, 2024, whichever comes later.

The final $ 135 million payment is due no later than April 1, 2025.

“In consideration for the release of his claims,” former UFC fighter Nate Quarry is set to receive a one-time payment for $ 250,000 as part of the settlement agreement. Quarry was one of the original fighters who filed the antitrust lawsuit against UFC back in 2014.

The deal also includes a provision from UFC for a five-year period that starts at the effective date of the settlement agreement for certain adjustments to fighter contracts that already exist, as well as any new contracts signed during that five-year stretch.

Here are the key components:

• Fighters agree to an exclusive negotiating period with UFC for the “extension or renewal” of a contract that can last no longer than 30 days. If the fighter fails to reach an agreement on an extension or renewal of the contract, the athletes “may negotiate with any other promotional entity” subject to the UFC’s ability to then match that offer.
• The matching period for UFC on contracts can extend no further than four months. During that time, UFC can choose to match financial terms and conditions for any other offer made to a fighter, and fighters cannot accept or enter into any agreements or contracts with other promotions during this time without complying with the matching period.
• If a fighter is “unable or unreasonably refuses to compete for any reason” when offered a fight, UFC maintains control to extend the contract for a sufficient amount of time to find a new opponent/date or for up to six months, whichever is longer. A “new opponent” means “an opponent different than the one previously offered and declined.
• If a fighter decides to retire from competition, UFC can effectively freeze the contract for a maximum of four years or opt to release the fighter from contract during that period of time. As soon as a retired fighter hits the four-year mark, the contract automatically terminates.
• There’s also a provision to allow fighters more freedom with name and likeness rights with UFC maintaining “nonexclusive worldwide rights” to use the fighter’s identity.

As a reminder, these changes have been provisionally approved but nothing is official until the court approves the settlement agreement.

The payments made under the terms of the agreement are put into the UFC Settlement Fund, which will then be used to make disbursements out to qualifying athletes covered by the antitrust lawsuit.

There can still be objections filed, although all signs are pointing toward a final hearing where the court likely signs off on the settlement agreement to finish the proceedings and end the antitrust lawsuits against UFC.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

For the past few years, Curtis Blaydes became a curious observer when it came to the UFC heavyweight title, because he honestly got tired of calling for a shot at the belt and his pleas falling on deaf ears.

At UFC 304 in July, Blaydes finally gets his first crack at gold when he clashes with Tom Aspinall in the co-main event, but technically he’ll only get to compete for a piece of the title that night. Aspinall currently holds the interim title while Jon Jones reigns as the UFC heavyweight champion, but Jones is expected to face Stipe Miocic in November in a legacy fight more than a year in the making.

As much as Jones picking Miocic as an opponent might annoy Aspinall, Blaydes understands why that fight is happening over a title unification bout.

“We knew Jon wanted the money fight,” Blaydes told MMA Fighting. “The money fight is Stipe. No disrespect to Stipe but he’s also older, he’s not as fast as he once was. On paper, it feels like an easier fight. Like I said, I don’t want to disrespect Stipe, but he’s also 43 years old, something like that. A decade from now, I won’t be the guy I am right now. No disrespect but I knew Jon wasn’t going to fight anybody else except for Stipe. Even when he was talking about Alex Pereira, I knew that wasn’t happening either.

“I hear about the stuff, but it doesn’t stick in my head. I don’t believe it’s going to happen. If it had happened, I’d have been shocked, but I didn’t really believe any of the rumors.”

Miocic hasn’t fought since 2021, when he suffered a knockout loss to Francis Ngannou in the fight that cost him the UFC heavyweight title.

Assuming the Jones fight happens in November, Miocic will be just two months removed from celebrating his 42nd birthday and the odds won’t be on his side to pull off the upset against Jones, who has never really tasted defeat during his entire career (the one blemish on his résumé is a disqualification where Jones was clearly winning before an illegal strike ended the fight).

Still, Miocic is arguably the greatest heavyweight in UFC history, with more consecutive title defenses than anybody else in the 30-plus year history of the company. His accomplishments and name value are exactly what Jones is chasing, and Blaydes can’t fault him for that.

“From a business perspective or think about it in terms of war, if you could take over this base that has a huge name and it’s not as heavily guarded versus this other base that’s a little smaller but you know it’s heavily, heavily guarded, and you’ll get almost the same respect for taking either base — you go for the easier base,” Blaydes explained. “Why not?”

Rumors have also swirled for months that if Jones defeats Miocic to defend the UFC heavyweight title, it could serve as the final fight of his legendary career. Jones has hinted at retirement in the past, but adding Miocic to his résumé would seem like one of the last boxes he could ever want to check before walking away from the sport.

Of course, Jones could stick around to unify the titles against the winner of Blaydes’ fight against Aspinall, but the veteran heavyweight contender just doesn’t see that happening.

“I fully believe [Jones will retire],” Blaydes said. “He’ll have to prove us wrong. That’s what I believe. That’s what a lot of guys think. Obviously we talk about these things at the gym, I have the perspective of other fighters, other coaches, other people in the MMA world, and I haven’t heard anyone who really believes that he isn’t going to retire.”

To be perfectly clear, Blaydes isn’t taking issue with Jones should he decide to hang up his gloves after facing Miocic. In fact, Blaydes actually wonders why Jones would even consider sticking around and risking everything against him or Aspinall.

“Because why wouldn’t he [retire]?” Blaydes said. “What else does he have to prove? He’s rich. He’s got the status. He’s the GOAT. That’s not deniable. He’s on the Mount Rushmore for anybody. I don’t see what brings him back into the octagon after the Stipe fight.”

That said, Blaydes feels like he’s actually getting the tougher fight by drawing Aspinall now over Jones. As much as he respects Jones for his long list of accomplishments, Blaydes acknowledges that his matchup against Aspinall presents bigger threats because simply put, he’s facing a bigger, stronger opponent.

“I say Aspinall [is the tougher fight] just because he’s younger, a little springier and he’s a natural heavyweight,” Blaydes said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “I know Jon’s the better grappler but I don’t think that’s enough of a determining factor to make him harder than Aspinall. I think Aspinall because he’s a legitimate heavyweight. I think he probably hits harder also. That’s all speculation but he looks like he hits harder than Jon. He also showed he can do grappling, just not at the highest level. I’m going to give it to Aspinall.

“I know when Jon hears this he’s going to be like ‘he thinks I suck.’ That’s not what I’m saying. Right now, Aspinall is a harder fight than Jon Jones.”

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