Ex-Nevada State Athletic Commission chair expresses regret over Dana White’s slap league: ‘I made a mistake’

Dana White’s Power Slap league will wrap up this weekend with its championship matches in Las Vegas.

And while some have questioned the safety of this new combat sport, the former chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission says he regrets having sanctioned the league at all. 

Stephen Cloobeck, who resigned from his position in December, more than halfway through his two-year term, was there when the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) sanctioned White’s latest endeavor.

But it’s a decision he now regrets. 

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“I made a mistake,” Cloobeck told The Associated Press Wednesday. “I’m not happy about it.”

White recently addressed the concerns about the league, saying at a press conference Wednesday his involvement is what likely sparked the outrage. 

“The Las Vegas Review-Journal is talking about how ashamed the Nevada State Athletic Commission should be about sanctioning Power Slap, right?” White said. “The Nevada State Athletic Commission is the best athletic commission in the world. It’s not just because they’re in our hometown. If the equivalent of the Nevada State Athletic Commission was in Alaska, we’d be going to them for approval, right?

“It doesn’t matter what your opinions are of this. This has been going on for 10 years unregulated. And what the athletic commission does is they come in and oversee it, and they make sure all the health and safety precautions are in place, that everybody’s abiding by it and doing what they’re supposed to do. These unregulated events are going on all over the world.”

White defended the league’s medical testing, giving an example of one fighter who underwent testing to discover that he had “a brain aneurysm.”

“We let him know that fight’s off, and this guy should never compete again in a combat sport. That’s why health and safety is so important and why it should be regulated.” 

White announced during the press conference that the league received approval to hold events in five states. The league is also being supported by the commission and awaiting approval in five additional states, and six more states have had discussions about it.