On a recent Wednesday night in Las Vegas, eighteen men ranging between 170 and 300 pounds filed into the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) APEX event facility to participate in late capitalism’s newest “sport.”

For two hours, these men paired off according to their respective weight classes, and then stood in front of one another, feet shoulder width apart, to exchange open-handed blows to the face. Like a scene from They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, they were not allowed to flinch, brace, or otherwise defend themselves. Many were knocked unconscious. Some bled. At least one left the facility with his right cheek looking more like a volleyball than a piece of human anatomy.

Watching the violence was a streaming audience of some several hundred thousand, a small studio audience, and a collection of government officials, who both enforce the rules of slap fighting and are on hand to catch the contestants’ unconscious bodies. Gleefully watching it all from the front row was UFC president Dana White, owner of the Power Slap promotion.