Jacob Debets is a Melbourne-based lawyer and writer. He is currently cowriting a book about the Ultimate Fighting Championship with John S. Nash.
MMA used to be home to oddballs unified by a love of beating each other up inside cages. But since Donald Trump’s first presidency, the UFC has rebranded the sport as a refuge for the “anti-woke sports fan,” while breaking unions and censoring the media.
The UFC spinoff company Power Slap is angling to make slap fighting a new “sport.” But its recent visibility has less to do with its organic popularity than with the UFC’s ever-expanding grip on combat sports.
Last year, a major fight-fixing scandal broke out in mixed martial arts company UFC, centered around fighter turned trainer James Krause. No one should be surprised: UFC’s neoliberal business model all but incentivizes corruption.