AUSTIN (KXAN) — Professional fighting events where two competitors take turns forcefully slapping each other with an open hand can now happen in Texas after a vote last month by state regulators.
The seven members appointed by the governor to the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation agreed unanimously at their July 23 meeting to officially recognize and license slap fighting in the state. This comes after similar moves in Nevada, Florida and California and despite some doctors raising alarm bells about athletes potentially suffering serious injuries.
Dr. Ray Callas, a Beaumont anesthesiologist who serves on the commission, said regulating slap fighting will actually improve safety, like requiring physicians and paramedics to be on site at events. He noted there are reports of unregulated events already happening in the Midland-Odessa area as well as the Panhandle and South Texas.
“There are so many things going on that we don’t regulate,” Callas said. “Now we will have the big arm to make sure that they’re sanctioned and regulated by a leading organization like TDLR (Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation).”
However, the Brain Injury Association of America finds it alarming to see slap fighting recognized like this in another state. In a statement shared Thursday with KXAN, Dr. Gregory O’Shanick, the association’s medical director emeritus, called the Texas commissioners’ decision “disappointing.”
“What is being portrayed for the public to witness firsthand is a real-time laboratory for sustaining a traumatic brain injury,” O’Shanick wrote. “There is no safe way to host an event like this. Blunt force trauma to the head, especially repetitive impacts over a brief period of time, result in changes in brain function that have devastating consequences for many individuals.”
A spokesperson for TDLR said the agency still needs to work on approving final rules for the program. Because that process could take a while, it’s not expected that any official slap fights would happen in the state this year.
Alan Klingbeil, a slap fighter based in San Antonio, said he hopes this will allow him to compete closer to home.
“To have a sport like this be recognized underneath Texas regulation, I think, is huge,” Klingbeil said, “because it provides, not only — like it gives it a sense of a surety that you are going to be safe as an athlete.”
Interest in the sport grew wildly in recent years — driven in part by viral videos showing slow-motion hits, crunched faces and chalk clouds forming after blows. Seeing one of these fights in person usually requires a trip to places like Las Vegas. That’s where Hayden Southall from Dallas has gone twice to compete.
“It’s pretty cool to just go out there and show how tough you are,” Southall said Thursday, “so most people can see that when you get hit as hard as you can.”
He and Klingbeil are both on the roster for Power Slap, which is an affiliate of the UFC. The organization is now a registered combative sports promoter in Texas, and it posted on social media after the state regulators’ vote, “Power Slap is headed to Texas.”
Southall currently has no slap fights on the books, but he explained how the process usually works. Officials first check fighters for their nail length and whether they have the correct mouth guard and earpieces. They then compete for at least three rounds exchanging hits with one another, with a winner emerging either by knockout or accumulating enough points.
He also said he has not suffered any serious injury other than bruising after his two fights.
“Since it is a professional sport, it’s sanctioned,” Southall said. “Depending on your injury, at the end of your fight, the doctors will look you over, and they’ll sign off on how long you have to recover for before you could even think about practicing, training or doing another fight again.”
Southall said he initially got into slap fighting to draw more attention to his main passion of sumo wrestling, which has taken him to compete all over the U.S. and internationally.