Dana White's Power Slap League premiere delayed one week, TBS spokesperson confirms
Just days after a shocking video from a New Year's Eve celebration in Mexico emerged that showed UFC president Dana White slapping his wife, Anne, in the face, the debut of his newly created Power Slapping League has been delayed a week.
Jori Arancio, a spokesperson for TBS, confirmed to Yahoo Sports that the series, "Power Slap: Road to the Title," will now air on Jan. 18 instead of Jan. 11 as originally planned. Front Office Sports first reported that Power Slap was removed from TBS' schedule.
Long-time MMA journalist Jeremy Botter tweeted later Thursday that the death of the deal is imminent.
A Warner Media source tells me Dana White’s Power Slap series is no longer listed on any internal programming schedules and all ad spots have been dropped. The death of the deal, I’m told, is basically just paperwork at this point.
— Jeremy Botter (@jeremybotter) January 5, 2023
Arancio made no other comment other than that the series would begin on Jan. 18. There was no official confirmation from TBS whether White's incident in Mexico led to the delay of the slap league's debut on the network.
White issued an apology for slapping his wife to TMZ on Monday after video emerged of the incident in a night club in Mexico. White said he was drunk at the time.
"Well, I’m in Cabo, Mexico, for the holidays with my family. My wife and I were out Saturday night for New Year’s Eve, and unfortunately, that’s what happened. I’m one of those guys, you’ve heard me say for years, ‘There’s never ever an excuse for a guy to put his hands on a woman,’ and now here I am on TMZ talking about it.
“My wife and I have been married for almost 30 years. We’ve known each other since we were 12 years old. We’ve obviously been through some shit together, and we’ve got three kids. This is one of those situations that are horrible. I’m embarrassed. But it’s also one of those situations where right now we’re more concerned with our kids. We have three kids and obviously since the video popped up, we’ve shown the kids the video. We’re more focused on our family right now."
After White's admission on Monday, the stock price of Endeavor — the parent company of the UFC —dropped 5% on Tuesday. It was at $22.58 a share when the market opened, but dropped as low as $20.67. It rebounded on Wednesday, going up by more than 3%, and closed Thursday at $21.90 a share.