THE California State Athletic Commission’s decision to back the TKO-led Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act has been dressed up as a victory for the sport.
For those who have followed boxing’s never-ending and sometimes damaging relationship with power and money will know that when someone or a corporation promises to “raise the floor”, it usually means it wants to own every piece of the building as well.
The CSAC voted 6-0 on Wednesday (October 15) to endorse the amendment which is being pushed by TKO Group Holdings who are the parent company of the UFC and WWE. The meeting lasted over two hours, with more than 90 members of the public joining and 32 speaking. Of those 12 voiced support and 20 opposed the move. The commission’s backing came with one condition, that the amendment must include cost-of-living adjustments at state level.
It’s easy to see why the bill sounds appealing on the surface. TKO’s Nick Khan, who also happens to be WWE’s president, promised a new system where boxers would earn more, receive better health protections and enjoy greater exposure through TKO’s broadcast muscle. He even cited the support of Lonnie Ali, widow of the great Muhammad Ali, to lend emotional weight to the proposal.
But scratch beneath the surface and the concerns voiced during the public comment period tell a different story.
Former UFC fighters, including Matt Brown, Kajan Johnson, Sara McMann and Carlos Newton, spoke out against the proposal, warning of one-sided contracts, lack of pay transparency and the dangers of allowing one company to dominate the marketplace.
Trainer Juanito Ibarra went further and had little positive to say about it, while the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association questioned the legality of how the CSAC pushed the vote forward.
The irony, of course, is that the original Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, introduced in 2000, was written precisely to stop this sort of thing from happening. That legalisation, named in honour of a fighter who spent his life resisting control and exploitation, was designed to protect boxers from the very conflicts of interests the TKO amendment risks bringing back.
The Ali Act made it illegal for a promoter to act as a manager and required full financial transparency from promoters and sanctioning bodies. It was built to keep the business side of boxing honest, or at least visible, and to give fighters the information and freedom to make the best decisions for their careers.
The so-called Revival Act, however, would open the door for new “Unified Boxing Organisations” (UBOs) to operate outside the current sanctioning framework – effectively allowing one corporation to both regulate and promote under its own banner. In simple terms, it could let TKO do for boxing what it already does for mixed martial arts, control the talent, the titles, the schedules and the pay.
Commissioner Chris Gruwell described the bill as something that “raises the floor for boxing,” referencing the idea of building a UFC-style performance institute in Florida for fighters. It sounds progressive, but centralised control has never been boxing’s problem.
Lack of opportunity, broken regulation and self-interest have been. The last thing the sport needs is another hierarchy that boxes fighters in while telling them they’re being freed.
California’s endorsement doesn’t make the bill law, as it still needs to clear multiple stages in Congress. But it does give TKO’s campaign momentum. The support of Lonnie Ali and figures like “Big” John McCarthy and Forest Griffin lends it a veneer of legitimacy. Yet legitimacy is not the same as fairness.
If the history of boxing teaches us anything, it’s that whenever a single entity promises to fix the sport, the sport ends up paying for it.
The Muhammad Ali Act wasn’t perfect, but it was one of the few genuine attempts to protect fighters rather than those who profit from them. To alter it in a way that allows corporate control over rankings, titles and fighter pay would not be a revival of Ali’s legacy. Instead, it would be the undoing of it.
For now, the bill remains only a proposal. But boxing should remember why the original law was written and who it was written for.
