Power Slap 21: Ellie Dempster Wins the First Women's Flyweight Title
Power Slap crowned its first women's flyweight champion on July 10, 2026, when Ellie "Belly" Dempster defeated Zoe Dubois by unanimous decision — 49-45 across all three scorecards — in the main event of Power Slap 21 at The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Staged during UFC International Fight Week and carrying three title fights, the card marked the first time the Dana White–founded promotion put a women's flyweight belt on the line, a milestone for a sport that launched in 2023 with an almost entirely male roster.
The women's title fight headlined a night that also delivered the format's signature product: fast, one-sided knockouts, several inside two rounds.
The Main Event: A Historic First
Dempster's win over Dubois was the first women's flyweight championship bout in Power Slap history, and the scorecards — a clean sweep at 49-45 — reflected a decision rather than a knockout, a comparatively rare outcome in a sport built on single decisive strikes. For a promotion that has leaned on male heavyweights for its viral highlights, crowning a woman as a divisional champion widens the roster in a direction Power Slap has signaled it wants to grow.
The milestone tracks a broader shift across combat sports, where women's divisions have moved from afterthought to headline act — a trajectory visible even in the roughest corners of the sport, as our report on the rise of women's bare-knuckle fighting details.
Three Title Fights
Beyond the main event, two more belts were contested:
- Welterweight title: Cole "Born Again" Young defeated Brandon "The Ripper" Rhodes by unanimous decision (47-44 across the cards).
- Middleweight title: Isaih "The Puerto Rican Pretty Boy" Quinones knocked out Stunt Marshall in round three.
Three championship bouts on a single card is an unusually stacked night for the promotion, and pinning it to International Fight Week — the busiest week on the combat-sports calendar — was a deliberate bid for overflow attention from the UFC's Las Vegas crowd.
Jake Hager Knocked Out
The night's most recognizable name lost. Former WWE and AEW star Jake Hager, whose Power Slap debut drew mainstream curiosity to the sport, was knocked out by Amanpreet Singh in the third round of their heavyweight bout. Hager's professional-wrestling and MMA background gives him a crossover profile the promotion values, but Power Slap's format offers no place to hide: a competitor who takes a clean strike absorbs the full force, and Singh's finish was decisive.
The Rest of the Card
The undercard produced the quick finishes that define the format:
- Light Heavyweight: Da Crazy Hawaiian knocked out Vernon "The Mechanic" Cathey in round two.
- Middleweight: Ke'Ali'i "The Chief" Kanekoa knocked out Hunter "The Homebody" Hassanin in round two.
- Heavyweight: Wes "Boom" Mena knocked out Johnny "The New Mexican Badass" Magna in round two.
- Lightweight: Bryan "Baby Yoda" Scambler beat Anthony "Da Kiing" Defrank by disqualification in round one.
The Backdrop
Power Slap 21's timing and title-heavy card land in the same month that the sport's safety profile came under its most serious scrutiny yet. A peer-reviewed study published in JAMA Surgery found that 78% of Power Slap competitors showed at least one visible concussion sign, and one in five showed signs of a second impact — findings rooted in the same mechanics that produce the round-two knockouts that fill these cards. Readers new to the format can start with our explainer on what Power Slap is and its current champions.
The tension is now permanent for the sport. The same undefended, full-power strikes that made Power Slap 21 a night of fast knockouts and a historic first are the ones medical researchers are warning about. Power Slap keeps expanding — new divisions, new champions, prime calendar real estate. The questions expand with it.
