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The rise of slap fighting
扇耳光格斗运动的兴起
Bad sport
糟糕的运动
The violence of a new combat sport is part of its allure.
暴力正是这一新型格斗运动的部分吸引力所在。
In January 2023 Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed martial-arts firm, launched a new sporting endeavour: Power Slap, America’s first official slap-fighting league.
2023年1月，终极格斗锦标赛（综合格斗公司）的主席大那·怀特发起了一项新的运动赛事：扇耳光争霸赛，这是美国第一个官方扇耳光联赛。
Slap fighting is simple.
这种比赛很简单。
Two competitors, usually beefy men, slap each other. Hard.
两名对手，通常都是壮如牛的男性，互相扇耳光。狠狠地扇。
The bout typically ends when only one of them is conscious.
比赛结束时，通常只剩一个人还是意识清醒的。
As recently as a year ago the sport was obscure, watched largely on social media in eastern Europe.
就在一年前，这项运动还鲜为人知，主要出现在东欧的社交媒体上。
Now slap-fighting franchises are starting to hit the mainstream.
现在，扇耳光比赛的衍生节目开始进入主流视野。
The league’s first televised slap fight last year between two welterweights, Chris Thomas and Chris Kennedy, gave a sense of what was to come.
去年联赛第一次在电视上播出，次中量级选手克里斯·托马斯和克里斯·肯尼迪对决，这两人的比赛让人们大概知道了扇耳光比赛是什么样的。
Mr Thomas’s initial strike was mighty, rippling Mr Kennedy’s face and sending him to the mat, where he started displaying the fencing response.
托马斯的第一个耳光威力很大，把肯尼迪的脸扇得变了形，并将他推倒在垫子上，然后肯尼迪出现了击剑反射。
This is when a person’s arms are extended after a blow.
击剑反射指一个人在遭受重击后会双臂伸直。
It can be a sign of brain injury.
这可能是脑损伤的征兆。
Officials rushed to him and explained, when Mr Kennedy came to, that he had just been knocked out.
裁判赶紧跑到肯尼迪身边，当他苏醒过来后，裁判解释说他刚刚被击倒了。
“Knocked out doing what? Was I fighting?” he asked.
“干什么被打晕了？我在打架吗？”他问道。
Watching people slap each other may sound mindless.
看人们互相扇耳光可能听起来很愚蠢。
And that is exactly what television viewers thought.
电视观众们就是这么想的。
Mr White first launched his venture as a reality-TV show, “Power Slap: Road to the Title”, but it failed to catch on and was dropped by TBS, a broadcaster, in March 2023, partly because of low ratings (and partly because of controversy after Mr White was filmed slapping his wife).
怀特最初通过真人秀节目《耳光争霸赛：夺冠之路》推出了这项运动，但这个节目未能流行起来，并在2023年3月被TBS电视台取消，部分原因是收视率太低(部分原因是怀特被拍到扇他妻子耳光并引发争议)。
However, television trash can turn into social-media treasure.
然而，电视垃圾可能会变成社交媒体宝藏。
“Power Slap” garnered a devoted online audience and now claims 4.2m followers on TikTok, with some videos achieving more than 1m views.
《耳光争霸赛》吸引了一大批忠实的网络观众，现在TikTok上有420万粉丝，有些视频的观看量超过100万次。
The hype on social media spurred Mr White to double down with a second season, this time broadcast on Rumble, a video-sharing platform.
社交媒体上的火热反响促使怀特加倍努力地拍摄第二季，第二季将在视频分享平台Rumble上播出。
The season finale will air on February 9th.
第二季的大结局将于2月9日播出。
The growing popularity of “Power Slap” is a slap in the face for those who worry about brain injury in combat sport.
一些人担心在格斗中会造成脑损伤，但这些人被《耳光争霸赛》的火热度啪啪打脸。
Contests involve unrestrained attacks with no defence: contestants are not allowed to duck, dodge or wince when hit.
比赛中的攻击没有任何限制或防御：参赛者不允许躲闪、避开耳光或在被扇时露出痛苦表情。
Most bouts conclude with a knockout (involving a fighter being unable to get up) or a technical knockout (with a referee deeming the fighter unfit to continue).
大多数比赛以击倒(选手无法站起来)或技术击倒(裁判认为选手不能继续比赛)结束。
In 26 of the 55 league matches to date a competitor was rendered unconscious.
到目前为止，55场联赛比赛已经进行了26场，出现了一名参赛者被扇到昏迷。
Critics worry about brain damage and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease that occurs after repeated head trauma, often resulting in speech impediments and dementia.
批评这项比赛的人担心会造成脑损伤和慢性创伤性脑病变（CTE），这是一种在头部反复经历创伤后发生的神经退化性疾病，通常会导致语言障碍和痴呆症。
In recent years the reputations of American football, mixed martial arts (MMA) and rugby have been bruised because of the risks posed to athletes’ neurological health, including more documented cases of CTE.
近年来，美式橄榄球、混合格斗(MMA)和英式橄榄球的声誉受到了损害，因为这些运动对运动员的神经健康构成风险，包括许多有记录的CTE病例。
(Health concerns, however, have not stopped fans from watching matches.)
(然而，对健康的担忧并没有阻止球迷观看比赛。)
Some critics are going so far as to try to ban children from contact sport.
一些批评者甚至试图禁止儿童参加接触性运动。
A committee of the California legislature recently passed a bill to make it illegal for those under the age of 12 to play tackle football.
加利福尼亚州立法机构的一个委员会最近通过了一项法案，规定12岁以下的人使用擒抱摔倒是非法的。
(Gavin Newsom, the governor, vetoed it, knowing political opponents would tackle him for regulatory overreach.)
（州长加文·纽瑟姆否决了这项法案，因为他知道政治对手会以越权监管为由对他进行抨击。）
But even more than American football, slap fighting raises ethical questions about watching a sport that Dr Bennet Omalu, an expert on CTE, has called “inconsistent with the intelligence of humans”.
但是，与美式足球相比，扇耳光比赛引发了更多关于观看这项运动的伦理问题，CTE专家贝内特·奥马鲁博士称这种运动“不符合人类的智力水平”。
The UFC experienced similar scrutiny in the 1990s.
终极格斗锦标赛在20世纪90年代经历了类似的审查。
John McCain, a senator who later ran for president, branded MMA “human cockfighting” and attempted to ban it.
约翰·麦凯恩（后来竞选总统的参议员）将MMA称为“人类斗鸡”，并试图禁止这种运动。
The league introduced safety regulations, with the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts markedly increasing safety for athletes and opening the sport to larger venues that previously refused to host MMA fighting.
MMA联赛后来引入了安全规定，用“MMA统一规则”显著提高了运动员的安全性，并让MMA格斗在更大的场馆举办，这些场馆曾经拒绝举办MMA格斗。
What regulations to promote safety in slap fighting might look like is not entirely clear: the lack of protective kit and rules helps explain the sport’s appeal for viewers.
目前尚不清楚促进扇耳光安全性的规定会是什么样子：选手不穿保护装备和缺乏规则正是这项运动能吸引观众的因素。
Most power-slappers are unbothered by complaints that their “sport” shows how desensitised viewers have become to violence.
大多数参赛者并不介意一些怨言，人们抱怨说他们的“运动”表明观众对暴力已经变得如此麻木不仁。
They just want a moment of social-media fame, brains be damned.
毕竟他们只是想在社交媒体上获得片刻的热度，让脑袋见鬼去吧。
