{"id":29425,"date":"2025-07-28T13:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/29425\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T13:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:07:08","slug":"boxers-commissions-kept-out-of-the-loop-on-muhammad-ali-revival-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/29425\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxers, commissions \u2018kept out of the loop\u2019 on Muhammad Ali Revival Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

After months of speculation on how UFC parent company, TKO Group Holdings Inc.<\/a>, would enter the world of boxing<\/a> when many of their practices are not allowed under terms<\/a> of the Muhammad Ali Act, we now have the answer. Last week (Weds., July 23, 2025), U.S. representatives Brian Jack and Sharice Davids introduced the Ali Revival Act in Congress that purports to fix several problems that they claim are holding the sport of boxing back in America.<\/p>\n

The bill also carves out exceptions that TKO will use to have their own rankings and belts for their new boxing league, just like the UFC. That\u2019s making a lot of boxing folk nervous, and not just because the UFC used their own belts to lock an iron grip around MMA so strong that they recently had to pay out over $375 million<\/a> in antitrust \/ monopsony money to underpaid fighters.<\/p>\n

The Ali Revival Act was revealed with a burst of publicity before many even got a chance to read it. Not only did it arrive with the support of Muhammad Ali\u2019s widow Lonnie Ali, it purported to have the \u2018unanimous support\u2019 of the board of the Association of Boxing Commissions. But combat sports lawyer Erik Magraken questions how legitimate that is when there are major commissions and committees within the ABC that never saw the bill \u2014 including an Athlete\u2019s Voice Committee that exists specifically to represent the fighters\u2019 voices within the ABC.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Athletes\u2019 Voice Committee never saw it,\u201d Magraken told Boxing Scene.<\/a> \u201cThe Athletes\u2019 Voice Committee asked the ABC to share this with them to keep them in the loop. The Athletes\u2019 Voice Committee was told that they would be kept in the loop and they weren\u2019t kept in the loop.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cJust like a Congress person, why would you vote yes for this or no for this if you haven\u2019t consulted with the athletes, which the Ali Act was designed to protect athletes?\u201d he asked. \u201cSo why wouldn\u2019t you listen to athletes before changing the Ali Act? And if you\u2019re a regulator, you\u2019re there to protect athletes, right? Combat sports are regulated to protect athletes from exploitation and to have certain health and safety standards in place. Why wouldn\u2019t you talk to athletes?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re the ABC and you created an athletes\u2019 committee, and that athletes\u2019 committee wants to know what\u2019s going on, why wouldn\u2019t you loop them into the conversation?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t know why the ABC board unanimously is supporting this,\u201d Magraken said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve heard from some state athletic commissions \u2013 I\u2019ve talked to a few commissioners, and they tell me they were not kept in the loop. So when the board says they unanimously support it, that doesn\u2019t mean that all of the state commissions support this. A lot of the state commissions, from what I can tell, had never seen this bill before the ABC board was saying they approve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s going on over there. But I think there\u2019s a lot of scrutiny that\u2019s required moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that TKO wants this bill to run through the political process fast. Whereas many bills are designed with the idea that implementation will take place over a year or two, the Ali Revival Act is set to be implemented in full a month after it\u2019s passed. That fits in with the September to early 2026 timeline TKO is looking to launch their boxing endeavor. <\/p>\n

Part of being able to pull off such a speedy move that could change the sport of boxing forever is presenting the appearance that everyone supports it. The name of the bill is genius in that regard. The approval of the Ali family as well, and the Association of Boxing Commissions. All of it has been presented to mainstream media in one big knockout punch via TKO\u2019s parent company Endeavor, one of the most powerful entertainment agencies in the world. Even other boxing promoters are staying silent as TKO is partnered with boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh, who currently signing many of their cheques. <\/p>\n

Those most affected \u2014 the boxers themselves \u2014 have a much smaller megaphone to voice their concerns, and no major unified body to help get their message out. <\/p>\n

We can\u2019t say for sure whether the Ali Revival Act would be good or bad for boxing. It\u2019s got good and bad elements to it, and boxing certainly does seem like it needs a shot in the arm in America. But let\u2019s be clear: this bill wouldn\u2019t exist if TKO didn\u2019t need to change the existing laws to allow them to run their boxing promotion like the UFC. That system that has resulted in fighters making roughly 17% of the revenue compared to athletes in other sports who make 50%. <\/p>\n

Everything else is just window dressing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After months of speculation on how UFC parent company, TKO Group Holdings Inc., would enter the world of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[13021,14846,23117,703,49,48,2185,23118,700,23119,701,23120,2184,23121,2177,1394,4637,23122,82,1462],"class_list":["post-29425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-act","tag-ali","tag-boxers","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-com","tag-commissions","tag-front-page","tag-kept","tag-latest-news","tag-loop","tag-mmamania","tag-muhammad","tag-of","tag-on","tag-out","tag-revival","tag-sports","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}