There’s the Stockton slap and there’s the Jason Parillo slap.
The Stockton Slap was made famous by Nick and Nate Diaz. The open-palmed strike isn’t necessarily thrown to cause damage. It is more of a mark of disrespect towards your adversary. After it lands it is usually followed by a grin and a head nod to let the poor sucker on the receiving end know that it was done only because it can be done.
The Jason Parillo slap, on the other hand, is a much more forceful strike. Unlike its Stockton relative, the Jason Parillo slap is not a means of disrespecting the person being slapped.
Not that you could tell from the first glance.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdojfGBlq_C/?taken-by=criscyborg
That clip posted by Cyborg prior to her UFC 219 headliner against Holly Holm raised a few eyebrows. While slaps between MMA coaches and their fighters aren’t uncommon, this seemed like a rougher one than most.
As Cyborg explained to Combate, there was nothing sinister involved. Although she doesn’t enjoy the ritual, it’s something that has been everpresent throughout her working relationship with Parillo over the last seven years.
“It’s a slap that I’m not expecting. He’s talking to me and then, out of nowhere, gives me this slap. But he does it to wake me up, to see if I’m really there. We’ve been working together for a while and he always does it.”
“It’s not something that I like, actually, at the time it makes me want to punch him in the mouth (laughs). It’s something that’s our own, we always do it and it always helps wake me up.”
If it works, it works. However, we can think of at least 50 more pleasant ways to wake up off the top of our heads.
