Fresh Off Turning Down Trump, Dana White Finds Himself In A Fight With... 'Power Spank'

Power Slap, the slap-fighting league co-owned by UFC CEO Dana White, has sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Lingerie Fighting Championships stop using the name "Power Spank" - the lingerie promotion's parody in which women take turns slapping each other on the backside instead of the face.The fight went public on Nov. 10, a day after White stood at the White House briefing room podium and turned down the press secretary job President Trump had offered him: "No, I do not want to be in politics."LFC, a Las Vegas-based promotion, announced on X that it had received the letter from counsel for Schiaffo LLC, the company that does business as Power Slap. "We're not backing down," the promotion wrote."We respect Power Slap and its founders, but we will not be bullied into abandoning protected speech," LFC CEO Shaun Donnelly said in a statement.LFC's case is that Power Spank is a deliberate parody, protected speech under the First Amendment, and that no reasonable viewer would think Power Slap made, sponsored or endorsed it. Donnelly also pitched his version as the safer one."Power Spank is our answer: same energy, same theatrics, none of the brain damage," Donnelly said. "And let's be honest, a spank is a lot more fun to watch than a slap."In both formats, competitors take turns landing blows until one is knocked out or gives up, and neither league lets the one on the receiving end defend herself or soften the hit. Power Spank is women-only, and its competitors fight in lingerie.With no lawsuit filed, LFC says Power Spank will keep opening its US events while it weighs its options with legal counsel, and it has no plans to change its programming.White's week started with Trump's Truth Social post on Nov. 7, which, as we reported, announced that "the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior" had been offered the press secretary job, with a plea attached: "Dana, please take the job!" Trump later said he had been kidding, and when White took the podium on Monday, the president warned reporters that "he's going to beat the hell out of you."White has since told TMZ that the trip was mainly about getting Trump's signature on a one-of-one Topps trading card commemorating the UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn in June.Donnelly says LFC will take the fight as far as it needs to: "We will defend our right, and the right of every American, to free speech, and if that takes us to the Supreme Court, we are prepared to go."