Arnold Schwarzenegger gives slap fighting a platform

Arnold Schwarzenegger gives fringe sports a platform at the Arnold Sports Festival on March 5 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Before he was ‘The terminator,’ Arnold Schwarzenegger was the superstar of bodybuilding, and now, he’s bringing slap fighting to the forefront at the Arnold Sports Festival on Saturday, March 5.

Schwarzenegger, once known as ‘The Austrian Oak,’ made waves during the 1970s with his massive yet sculpted physique. The 6-foot-2, 240 pound native of Austria brought bodybuilding to the masses with the sensational optics of his body and magnetic charisma.

Schwarzenegger won seven Mr. Olympia bodybuilding titles, which is the Super Bowl of the sport. He won his first title in 1970 when the sport was in its infancy. Bodybuilding was ridiculed as an oddity, but Schwarzenegger’s personality resonated with the public. He popularized the sport and made it part of the mainstream.

Schwarzenegger never took mean-spirited comments targeting bodybuilding personally. Instead, he used it as motivation to broaden bodybuilding’s specter.

“I did not disdain it at all because I figured it out when I came to America,” Schwarzenegger told FanSided during a recent media call. “That the reason why the sport was so unknown or that there was so many misconceptions about the sport was because no one really communicated well to the mass and to the press.

Schwarzenegger took it upon himself to become bodybuilding’s ambassador to the world.

“I felt like it was an empty bucket, and whoever fills up that bucket, that’s what was going to play out out there,” Schwarzenegger said. “So I felt very strongly at that point that I have to go and start taking charge of this and start hiring a publicist and start systematically moving forward and start explaining the sport of bodybuilding to the press.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger secured the services of Logan Paul to host the Slap Fighting Championship at the Arnold Sports Festival on March 5

Schwarzenegger’s strategy worked and culminated in the 1977 documentary

Pumping Iron

, which became a cult classic.

Schwarzenegger catapulted his stardom into a prolific acting career that made him arguably the biggest action star in the 20th century.

Despite all the fame, Schwarzenegger never stopped giving back to the sport that made him an A-list celebrity. Schwarzenegger created the Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition in 1989. It evolved into the Arnold Sports Festival that celebrates a multitude of non-mainstream sports competitions.

“This year, we will have around 18,000 athletes participating from over 60 nations, with over 100,000 attendees coming in throughout the weekend,” Schwarzenegger said. “This is a terrific event, and I want to thank everyone who has made this possible again.

“We don’t do anything by ourselves. There’s no such thing as a self-made man. We’ve had huge successes with The Arnold Classic. It’s the largest festival of its kind in the world, and this is not because of me alone. There are thousands of people who work throughout the year who put this together. Everyone brings something to the table.”

One of the sports featured this year is slap fighting. Basically, two competitors stand at opposite ends of a small table and take turns smacking each other. The Slap Fighting Championship takes place at the Arnold Sports Festival on Saturday, March 5, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, OH.

Schwarzenegger brought in famous YouTuber, novice boxer, and native Ohioan Logan Paul to host Slap Fighting Championship.

“It was great to hear that Logan was inspired by the Arnold Classic when he was a kid,” Schwarzenegger said. “Because I was inspired by watching Logan get in the ring and fight. We were inspired by each other, so it’s just natural for us to work together. I’m very interested to see how this works out with slap fighting, and hopefully, we can take this all over the world. We don’t know where this is going to go, but I’m really looking forward to this event.”

It sounds like the Arnold Sports Festival could become an international sporting phenomenon if all goes well with slap fighting. Maybe Schwarzenegger and Paul can make slap fighting the next fringe sport to emerge in the spotlight.

The Slap Fighting Championship airs at 2 p.m. ET on Fanmio or Logan Paul’s YouTube and Facebook pages for free. You can view all of the action of the Arnold Sports Festival for an early price of $24.99 if purchased by or on March 4 or $34.99 starting on March 5.