There are many odd festivals and activities which take place across the globe and although some might be culturally shocking and different, others are just weird.
In the Russian province of Siberia, a bizarre “man slapping championship” was recently conducted as part of the Siberian Power Show — a two-day festival that featured “mass wrestling” matches.
According to a report by The Daily Mail , the contest took place in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk city, wherein a number of male participants lined up to partake in the championship. And as soon as the contest began, one of the contestants was completely knocked out in a single strike.
What made the contest interesting was that the contestants were not allowed to duck out of the way or attempt to block the strike of their opponents. According to local media reports, the contest saw two Russian men — one bearded guy with a large built and one shorter guy.
A video of the contest was also posted by Russia’s NTV on Twitter which featured the two contestants standing face to face and looking into each other’s eyes. As the video shows, the shorter man, who is seen wearing a white t-shirt, makes the first move and slaps the bearded guy across his face.
However, the bearded guy — named Vasily Kamotsky per The Daily Mail article — does not even flinch after being slapped. He is seen waiting for a few seconds before delivering a heavy-handed blow which immediately knocked his opponent out.
The referee then signals the match to be over and consequently, Kamotsky is declared the “slapping champion.” As can be heard in the video, the crowd was seemed to be super excited to see the competition. As the article detailed, the winner received 30,000 rubles, which is the equivalent of around $466.
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— ??? (@ntvru) March 19, 2019
Although it looks like the competition is pretty straightforward, the contest is considered “the most brutal one in the world.” The slapping championship takes place in many parts of Russia and has been going on for many years.
Russian ‘man slapping’ championship sees contestants hit each other in the face until one of them gives up https://t.co/14ZVay8PT5
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 19, 2019
As reported by Unilad, people who participate in the slapping championship are neither athletes nor do they have any skills or techniques, unlike boxing or UFC.
Rather, the participants are just two people who like to slap each other really hard, therefore, there is no ‘sportsmanship’ involved.
Last year, a similar slapping competition took place during the Sarychev Power Expo in Moscow where a man named Yuriy Kuzmin was declared the ‘King of Slappers’ after competing with different people for three hours. After winning the contest, he was awarded 25,000 rubles or the equivalent of $370.
