Imagine sitting with your hands at your sides waiting for a 170kg giant to slap you.
The terror, according to a man who does this for a living, is worse than the assault. When it comes, your head spins and you occasionally collapse unconscious while the crowd goes giddy.
“The anticipation is definitely worse,” says Danie “Pitbull” van Heerden, adding that the impact of a solid slap has been measured at a staggering 988kg per square inch. Running into a brick wall must be much the same.
Van Heerden is the lone South African male competing in Power Slap, which is owned by Dana White, who is also president of the UFC.
The league has got the medical world in a froth and several fighting types have condemned it, but its popularity is growing beyond the US. South Africa had its first slapping event three years ago while professional shows have recently been held in the Middle East.
Van Heerden was drawn to this brutal competition for two reasons: he’s an avowed fighting man and, as he says, “it’s the only sport you can come off the couch and make it big.”
And then there’s the money. Last year he pocketed R1,3-million for taking just 11 slaps, which seems a reasonable trade given the risks.
Aged 38, Van Heerden has taken his licks in every combat sport imaginable: boxing, wrestling, K1 kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and bare-knuckle boxing. He’s even competed in strongman contests.
He’s been in with some of the scariest men on the planet, winning some and losing some, but always in his element among other fighters. He’s a likeable, laid-back man, easily shooting the breeze and modest to a fault.
His path to stardom was probably predictable. Younger brother Chris was an IBO welterweight boxing champion, while even younger Don-Juan is making his way in the local fight scene as a young professional. His late father Daniel, murdered in 2018, was a fighter too.
Power Slap is a competitive sport where two participants take turns slapping each other. A coin toss decides who strikes first. Each round consists of one slap per participant, with 30 seconds to slap and 30 seconds to recover. Matches typically have a minimum of three rounds. Victory can be achieved by knockout (KO), technical knockout (TKO), or points, using a 10-point must system similar to boxing. Fouls include clubbing, stepping, and blocking, with penalties ranging from warnings to disqualification. Participants must adhere to weight classes and wear protective gear like mouth guards
Danie’ journey has taken him from gritty small hall shows on the West Rand to Bangkok, Abu Dhabi and even Las Vegas, where, naturally enough, he married his wife Lindrie in a chapel last year.
“I wanted to be a race car driver when I was younger, but then I discovered how expensive it was,” he said of his early ambitions.
He turned to wrestling instead and wound his way to boxing. It was the sport that worked him the hardest, but he found little joy in it. “Just jab, hook, uppercut, bob and weave.”
After three professional boxing bouts, he then worked his way to number one contender in both the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions of the Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC), the biggest local MMA promotion where fighters like Dricus du Plessis and Cameron Saaiman emerged.
In 2016 he won the heavyweight belt, but his world came crashing down six months later. He became embroiled in a racial incident after a thoughtless post on social media. His title bout was cancelled and EFC threw him out.
With a have-bags-will-travel attitude, he made his way to the All Star Fight League and proudly secured both an MMA and boxing licence, despite local boxing officials warning him he couldn’t carry licences for two combat sports.
“MMA was too small for me,” he says, prompting a move to K1 before other exotic stops that included the Combat Sports League and Muay Thai in Thailand. He was then offered a big-money deal to compete in bare-knuckle boxing. And then Covid hit.
The world shut down, and so did Van Heerden. Covid was one opponent he couldn’t beat and after losing 18kg, he also lost interest in combat sport.
Power Slap then came along. Van Heerden pondered long and hard.
“Everyone can give a klap, but not everyone can take a klap,” he reckoned. He tried it out. The video of his casual effort was uploaded to TikTok for a laugh. After 17 million views, it was taken down, TikTok citing “dangerous acts” as the reason.
By then Dana White had seen it. His team contacted the South African, who was nothing if not curious.
Eleven quiet months went by and then Van Heerden was invited to Las Vegas. He had to win two slap fights before he’d be offered a contract. He duly delivered the goods, winning the first via referee’s stoppage and the next by knockout.
He was then sequestered in a house for three weeks with 30 other fighters for a TV special.
The audience was fast drawn to him, both for his refusal to allow anyone to get under his skin and his smack talk.
“Everyone loved it.”
Last February, with a promise that he’d contest the Power Slap super heavyweight championship if he beat Makini Manu, Van Heerden fell short. He was disqualified for an illegal shot (high on the temple).
It wasn’t all bad. Three days earlier, Manu had been best man at his Las Vegas wedding.
Eight months later the South African faced “Da Crazy Hawaiian” Layne Viernes, the 175kg man-beast who made a habit of smearing his opponents into shivering wrecks. Despite his modest 2-1 record, Van Heerden made it through five rounds.
“I was the first guy to ever go the distance against him,” said Van Heerden, who has bulked up to a walking-around weight of 170kg to be able to match the giants who dominate the slap circuit. Cashing in on his fame, plans are now afoot for Van Heerden to emigrate from Pretoria to the US with his family.
He’s had several more contests since the Viernes showdown, most recently in Saudi Arabia where he lost a decision to Hawaii’s Kalani “Toko” Vakameilalo two weeks ago.
Videos of the slaps are graphic and intense. “In slow motion, it looks insane,” he says, helpfully adding that boxing is worse.
“If you compare it to boxing, you go to the gym and you get hit in the face for four or six weeks while sparring, and then you have a 12-round fight. In Power Slap, it’s just three slaps in a regular fight, five for a title fight.”
When it’s pointed out to him that in boxing you can at least defend yourself, he says it’s no bad thing. “Boxing punches are four times harder than a slap. But if I had to slap someone in the street like I do in Power Slap, they will probably die.”
With a history as wildly colourful as his, in rings and on mats around the world, I ask the affable Van Heerden if he ranks among South Africa’s toughest men.
He pauses to think for a moment.
“When I was a youngster I met [wrestling great] Jan Wilkins. Now, he was tough. In South Africa, there are a lot of tough boertjies, so I dunno. Put it this way: in Boksburg, I’m ranked number eight.”
