LAS VEGAS -- It's almost surreal given how long the NFL waged a campaign against legalized sports betting that in a few days, the Super Bowl will be played in this gambling mecca. It's a dream of nearly every young football player to play in the Super Bowl, and you can be certain that every player on every NFL team is envious of the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs for getting to compete for the championship on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium.
Nate Burnard is in Las Vegas this week, and he once dreamed of both making the NFL and then playing in the Super Bowl. A 6-foot-4, 265-pound defensive lineman from Orchard Park, N.Y., Burnard had a pro day, but never made the NFL. But he's in Las Vegas as a professional athlete and will compete on Friday thanks to Mom's home cooking and a little encouragement from his parents.
Burnard, who played collegiately at Southwestern State, will compete against Ryan Phillips Friday on the main card of Power Slap 6 at the Durango Resort.
His journey to Power Slap was a big unusual, to say the least.
His mother was known for cooking big meals, and she invited him to the family home to eat. After dinner, the family would sit down for a movie or television show. His sister was searching for something to watch when she got excited by something she saw.
"She said, 'Hey, look at this!' " Burnard said. "It was Power Slap 1 and people were slapping each other left and right. My Dad joked to me that, 'You could do that.' And I guess I took that joke quite literally because I ended up signing up. I found a link and I signed up and the next thing you know, they gave me a call about a month-and-a-half later."
With that, his slap fighting career was born.
He recruited a couple of friends to help him prepare, and they took turns slapping him in the face. Many of the strikers never get hit in training and only take slaps in competition. Jackie Cataline, a high-level amateur wrestler, makes her PowerSlap debut Friday when she fights Franciska "Sheena Bathory" Szabo. Cataline has been practicing with other professional strikers, but said the first time she'll be hit is in competition.
Burnard, though, needed to get a feel for what it was like before the real thing.
It's a stunner for everyone the first time they do it. In Power Slap, the contestants stand across from each other and the person being struck holds a baton with both hands behind his or her back and isn't allowed to flinch. The opponent tells them what hand they'll strike with and on what count, so the receiver is ready.
Burnard didn't necessarily sign up dreaming of slap fighting glory, but he quickly found that this isn't a game to take lightly.
"Yeah, initially when I did it, I thought it was a joke and I'm like, 'I'm doing this as a joke. We'll see what happens.' " he said. "But when they actually called me back and it was like, 'Oh this is real now. This is actually happening.' When I got my ticket to fly there and I was in the hotel and meeting all these people, I was like, 'Yeah, this is real enough.'
"And that brought me back to my past experience with sports, with football. I was like, 'OK, this is game time.' I got lokced in and it's been quite the experience. I have enjoyed every single bit of it."
Burnard is 2-1 heading into Friday's bout against Phillips, one of his good friends. He knocked out Stevie Ray Payne in the first in his debut and then stopped Duane Crespo in the third on Aug. 9 in his next outing. That earned him a shot at the heavyweight title against Damien Dibbell.
He was knocked out in that fight, though he felt he could have continued. He said at the exact point the referee called the bout off, he was ready to resume.
Surprisingly, he said absorbing a strike isn't the most difficult aspect of Power Slap for him. It's striking in the proper spot without fouling.
"When it comes to the offensive status, that's more difficult," he said. "You have all this power and you have all this swing and this leverage and you want to make sure you land on the right mark without fouling. That's the biggest element that a lot of people have trouble getting over. They want to put all of their force and all their swing in one go, but you never know what could happen with a foul or a penalty or a club."