Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, represents California’s 17th Assembly District, which encompasses the eastern side of San Francisco. (California State Assembly via Bay City News)
California State Assembly/California State Assembly via Bay City News
A pension fund for boxers and mixed martial arts fighters in California could get a dedicated source of new sponsorship revenue under a bill introduced this week by Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco.
The bill, Assembly Bill 2031, follows up on legislation authored by Haney in 2023 that added MMA fighters to the state’s Professional Boxers’ Pension Fund administered by the California State Athletic Commission.
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The fund was created in 1982 and is the only state-sponsored pension fund for fighters in combat sports in the world, according to the California State Athletic Commission.
The new bill would be the first stable source of dedicated money for the fund, which currently relies mostly on fees from events. It would also grant one-time payments to certain fighters who retired before the eligibility requirements for the funds were formalized, according to a statement from Haney’s office.
Under the proposal, sponsors would pay for space on patches on referee uniforms and official apparel. Three quarters of the money would be dedicated to the pension fund and the remaining quarter would go toward referee training and the State Athletic Commission.
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Hall of Fame Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter and World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler Ronda Rousey was a vocal supporter of Haney’s previous bill to include MMA fighters in the pension fund and said in a statement that the new source of funding would give fighters what she said they had earned.
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“Fighters put everything on the line every time they step into a fight, and this sport made billions off the athletes willing to sacrifice everything for it,” Rousey said. “AB 2130 is about basic respect. If the people at the top of the industry are making billions, some of that money should be going back to the fighters who gave their bodies and their careers to build it.”
Haney similarly said fighters deserved a share of the money they helped generate and said this was a way to get them revenue generated directly from commercial aspects of the events without raising ticket prices for fans.
“Fighters should share in the value they create,” he said in a statement. “Every ticket sold, every sponsorship, every broadcast exists because they put everything on the line. When they step out of the ring for the last time, they deserve the security of knowing their sacrifice will be met with long-term support,” Haney said.
Combat sports can lead to a loss of brain volume and slower cognitive speeds, according to the Professional Fighters Brain Health Study which was published in 2014 in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Sports Medicine.
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Those findings were echoed in a study of fighters conducted over a 2-year period by researchers who published their findings in 2025 in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Andy Foster, executive officer of the California State Athletic Commission, said the bill was a smart way to create lasting revenue for fighters who earned it.
“This is the biggest piece of legislation for retired fighters in the history of boxing and mixed martial arts,” Foster said in a statement.
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The bill will be heard in two committees in coming weeks, according to Haney’s office.
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