A Kitchener athlete won the Power Slap championship in Las Vegas
No Power Slap competitors were harmed in the making of this open-handed hitting competition
While most of us were distracted by the World Cup, a Kitchener legend named Ellie “Belly” Dempster achieved her own national pride-deserving milestone: she became the first ever women’s flyweight Power Slap champion.
Power Slap is a regulated competition co-founded by UFC executives Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta. Like the name suggests, Power Slap athletes use open hands to strike their opponent’s cheek, while the competitor being slapped keeps their hands behind their back and must not flinch.
“I’m so grateful about it. And I’m still a little bit in shock,” 29-year-old Dempster told CTV News this week.
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Dempster, who is Canadian, had been a professional Muay Thai fighter in Thailand prior to competing in Power Slap. Before that, she grew up playing rugby.
She was named Power Slap’s Rookie of the Year in 2025.
According to the sport’s official website, Dempster remains undefeated. “This sport is still growing, and I want to be one of the people helping shape its future,” her bio quotes her as saying.
She explained to CTV that while the sport may appear abusive, because competitors can’t defend themselves, Power Slap athletes train to withstand the force of their opponents.
“You can work your body. You can work your defence. That’s the part that people aren’t seeing yet,” she said. “As the sport grows, more people are taking it seriously because they’re seeing that there is a technique to it.”
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
