Thursday’s hearing on the proposed legislation which would alter the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act (Ali Act) included the statement of Patrick English, a longtime boxing attorney. His statement pointed out a variety of issues with the new law.
Patrick English Testimony by MMA Payout
English points out the one thing that the Muhammad Ali Boxing American Revival Act does with its Universal Boxing Organizations. “The (Ali) Act was intended to create, among other things, a firewall between ratings organizations and Promoters. The proposed amendment destroys that firewall as to a selected entity which will be awarding in house championships based upon ratings which excludes boxers not affiliated with that entity.”
It took me a while when I first started watching MMA (way back when) that the UFC title was not the world title. Rather, it was the title of a company that awarded it to its independent contractors. It did not mean that they were a champion over other organizations. The UFC markets their titles as the “world” titles the same way the NBA markets its championship team as the “world champion.” You can argue in both cases, that might not be the truth. Well, in the NBA yes, UFC maybe. TKO has stated that it would only recognize The RIng Magazine title (the magazine acquired by Turki Al-Sheikh). It would not entertain any inter-promotional events under the UBO model.
English also noted the following issues which includes the lack of protection from coercive contracts, the lack of protections (such as firewalls) for fighters, the lack of reporting to all affected organizations if there is a positive drug test and the lack of inclusion of MMA fighters to the Act.
Payout Perspective:
It is worthy to note that English highlights that there are faults to the current Ali Act, but that does not mean that this present, proposed legislation needs to be passed. Rather, as English pointed out during the hearing, parties within the industry could come together to craft a bill. But that is not the case here as its clear that TKO has calculated its media relations campaign around the hearing. Last week, Terence Crawford made it known that he was not paying a sanctioning fee required of him to retain the belt he won against Canelo Alvarez. Nick Khan made the rounds on podcasts and the Pat MacAfee show about the business side of boxing prior to Thursday’s hearings. The argument made was that boxing is broken and that TKO had a solution.
Boxing can be broken, but it does not mean that TKO’s solution has to be the one. While there are some credible things that can help boxing, there are more perils within the legislation which could harm the fighter. Its clear that setting parallel paths would be advantageous for at least one UBO.
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