Meme-sports becoming mainstream?

Power Slap competition

In early 2023, Power Slap competitions exploded in popularity and were thrust onto the global stage. With a foot of space separating them, two people whose sole mission is to slap the consciousness from the other, take turns unleashing all the force they can generate at point-blank range, into their opponent’s skull. This jaw-dropping experience is one that a growing number of fans look forward to. It has amassed billions of views, with some matches lasting up to ten slaps, and others ending in just one. With the popular brand Monster as its main sponsor, Dana White, president of the UFC, took notice, saying, “Power Slap will be bigger than the UFC.” Dana now owns it.

Armor MMA

Hear-ye, hear-ye! Sharpen your swords and dust off your shield to get ready for Armored MMA. This sport takes the loose-fighting rules of MMA and combines them with a full-body suit of armor and a sword and shield. AMMA is the largest armored cage fighting league in the world. It brings together the best fighters from around the world to compete for the crown. Don’t get it twisted: these guys are just as athletic as the other fighting sports, if not more so. They have to go through rounds of sword-and-shield boxing while wearing a 50-lb suit of armor. And don’t think that stops them from putting on a show. There’s no shortage of action, from spinning back fists to Superman punches and even headlocks. So if you ever get the chance, take a break from the modern world and immerse yourself in AMMA.

Pillow fighting

Have you ever gotten in trouble with your parents for playing that silly pillow-fighting game, believing that it’s harmless fun? Well, that same game has been transformed into a competitive league where boxers swing a specially designed pillow at their opponent. Points are awarded based on accuracy, technique, and style, since knockouts don’t exist in this sport, because the pillow only weighs a measly two pounds. This sport illustrates how harmless games you’d play as a child can be entertaining to larger audiences, with a similar example being competitive tag, which is becoming a well-known sport in its own right. “Everyone has fought with pillows in their life. Now we do it for money and pride.” – ESPN.

Chess Boxing

It’s like your traditional boxing match. Head shots and body shots count as the point system, and a knockout is the ultimate victory. There’s just one twist. After each round, both opponents play one minute of stress-inducing chess. In this game, there are two ways to win: checkmate your opponent or win the boxing match. As the bout goes on, and you sustain more and more blows to the face, you lose mental focus. This typically isn’t an issue in regular boxing, but chess is a mental puzzle, and not being able to think straight will lead to sloppy, more entertaining chess. This two-way sport capitalizes on two audiences at once that it previously could not reach. It creates an environment where players can take a physical break while keeping the stakes high. It allows them to return to boxing fresher and more ready to go, while making it increasingly harder to play chess. It exposes chess fans to boxing and vice versa, and it’s a surprisingly entertaining way to merge the two sports.

Car jui-jitsu

Gentlemen, buckle your seatbelt and strap in because car jiu-jitsu is coming onto the scene. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It is the standard sport of jiu-jitsu, except that there are no takedowns because both opponents start sitting. They begin in the driver and passenger seats with their seatbelts on. Everything in the car is fair game, which means that the seat belt is commonly used to choke out your opponent, and fights regularly spill out into the back seats when the seats get put down mid-match. It’s strangely fun to watch two people fight it out inside such a common space, in a scene you would expect to find in a John Wick movie, which brings us to the last strange sport, Suit-jitsu.

Suit-Jitsu

Suit-jitsu was likely inspired by the John Wick franchise. It’s essentially two people wearing suits in a jiu-jitsu match, and if neither wins after the time is up, a fake weapon is randomly thrown into the mix. The two people have to battle each other to get control over the weapon and enact deadly force on their opponent, with either a knife or a gun. This sport takes the action-movie feel of car jiu-jitsu and multiplies it by ten. It makes the throws and finishes look infinitely cooler than they usually do, because both opponents are dripped out.