Days after a video emerged of UFC President Dana White hitting his wife on New Year’s Eve, TBS has reportedly pulled White’s Power Slap League from their schedule.
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
The series, announced in November, was scheduled to premiere next week. No public comments have been made by either Warner Bros. Discovery or Endeavor, the UFC’s ownership group.
It’s a gross understatement to say that the incident has been poorly covered in the sports media world. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith suggested White should give himself the same punishment that he would give a fighter who did the same thing. TMZ handled the situation with kid gloves. Yahoo’s Kevin Iole said White should “step away from the UFC for a month or so,” which sure is a take.
On the other side of the coin, former ESPN employee Dan Le Batard called out his former company for their coverage (or lack thereof) of White’s actions, and MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew examined the UFC’s varied stances towards domestic violence in the past (several fighters were cut and indeed never returned, while others were cut and eventually re-signed).
Anyway, Warner Bros. Discovery has apparently done something in response, even if it’s just a short-term postponement rather than a full-fledged axing of the project. It remains to be seen if they’ll be on an island in serving up consequences to White.
[MMA Fighting, Front Office Sports]
