Congress is weighing major federal reforms that proponents say would improve health protections for boxers, boost their pay and reverse the sport’s sagging popularity. Critics say the bill would weaken key provisions of existing federal regulations and could wind up removing some boxer protections to the benefit of big promoters such as the UFC’s Dana White and his Saudi Arabian partner, Turki Alalshikh.
The Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act cleared major benchmarks after the House of Representatives passed the bill by voice vote on Tuesday after a 30-4 approval vote in January by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. During debate, only one House member spoke out against it.
The lack of opposition in what is normally a deeply divided Congress provides a good weathervane of how the bill could fare in the Senate.
The bill now heads to the Senate, and if it passes there, combined with White’s close ties to President Donald Trump, it has a strong chance to become law.
The two current laws regulating boxing, the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000 and the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996, have drawn criticism for being too vague and lacking uniform enforcement powers. States such as California, New York and Texas often are left to enforce their own regulations, leading to a hodgepodge of inconsistent regulations, particularly around health and safety.
Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, a close friend of White’s, supported the new Revival Act revisions in December, citing its mandatory health insurance requirements. He asserted that some promoters have used loopholes in current law to “regain monopolistic control over fighters’ careers.”
The influential California State Athletic Commission also unanimously supported the bill despite opposition from fighters and other interested parties during public hearings.
USA Boxing, the governing body for amateur boxing in the United States, initially supported the bill but withdrew its support last month in favor of a neutral position.
Many current promoters and sanctioning bodies have expressed concerns with the bill.
The current Ali Act, in place since 2000, wouldn’t change. The Revival Act would instead create the option of a unified boxing organization to supplement what is currently available for fighters.
What are unified boxing organizations and why are they important?
The legislation’s most drastic change is adding unified boxing organizations as an “alternative system for compliance.” This would allow an organization to be a one-stop shop for fighters from promotion to ranking to sanctioning fights, similar to what already exists in the UFC. The UFC has its own rankings and belts and does all its own matchmaking. This could lessen the power of the current sanctioning bodies in boxing.
Under the proposed legislation, a UBO would not be reliant on any of the major independent boxing sanctioning bodies — the WBC, WBO, IBF and WBA — for belts or rankings.
In January, White described Zuffa Boxing, the new boxing promotion he helped create along with Alalshikh, chairman of the Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority. White runs it, describing it as “a work in progress.” It is widely believed if the Revival Act becomes law, White would create a UBO.
White previously said he did not want to work with the sanctioning bodies that currently control boxing’s rankings and belt system. The backtrack came after Zuffa’s biggest signing, former IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia, said he wanted to become undisputed champion, meaning he would hold all four major current belts at once.
A UBO would be a departure from the current system, which created a separation of powers between promoters and sanctioning bodies when it comes to control over rankings, matchmaking and titles. It also prohibited employees from boxing commissions from also working for promoters and sanctioning bodies as well as managers.
The legislation does, though, prohibit a UBO from also being the boxer’s manager if the fighter chooses to hire one.
What are the concerns about UBOs?
The current Ali Act prohibits “coercive contracts” and created disclosure rules forcing promoters to reveal how much money they received from a fight night to provide transparency.
It established contract requirements between fighters and promoters, separated the promotion and management of a fighter, mandated consistent rankings criteria for pro fighters and required publishing changes in a fighter’s ranking.
Pat English, an attorney who helped write the 1996 and 2000 boxing legislation, told Congress in December the Revival Act is “a betrayal of the current act” because it would not provide UBO fighters with similar coercive-contract and promoter-disclosure protections and does not require in-writing explanation of the rankings system.
“There is no justifiable reason for there to be different language regarding the firewall between promoters and managers established by the Muhammad Ali Act and the proposed revision,” English told Congress in written testimony.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum also wrote a letter to Congress in December expressing concern about the addition of UBOs. “The Amendment strips away these and other protections for fighters set forth in the Ali Act for any fighter that signs with a newly created Unified Boxing Organization …” Arum wrote. “As presently drafted, the conditions required for an entity to qualify as a UBO do not include the protections for fighters set forth above.”
Arum wrote “there is no reason for a UBO to be exempt” from complying with the same measures non-UBOs must comply with.
How could the Revival Act favor certain promoters?
The bigger the bankroll, the better chance at success. If a single promoter were able to sign the vast majority of fighters, it could become a dominant controlling body — from rankings to title shots to fighter pay — using a UBO. It’s similar to how the UFC became the main MMA promotion in the world, synonymous with the sport itself.
The UFC essentially acts as the major leagues in MMA, similar to the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB in their respective sports. Boxing doesn’t have an organization like that.
MMA, where White gained his prominence through the UFC, is not governed by the Ali Act. Late Sen. John McCain, a longtime supporter of the Ali Act, tried to expand the act to MMA in 2007, but the UFC opposed it and McCain’s effort failed. Then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin, a former MMA fighter who is the newly confirmed Homeland Security secretary, attempted to do the same in 2016, but his attempt also failed.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman wrote an open letter to the boxing community in January and accused “a powerful entity worth billions of dollars” of attempting to enter boxing and dominate it.
“Their aim to alter the landscape of boxing in the pursuit of profit cannot be ignored, and it needs to be seen for what it is: an attempted takeover of the people’s sport, which should not be owned or dominated by a single entity,” Sulaiman wrote, without mentioning the UFC, Zuffa or White by name.
White believes the provisions in the new act, which would allow an organization to operate more like the UFC does, are a different way to approach how the sport operates.
“They were very concerned about the Muhammad Ali Act, all these other things. None of that is going to change for them. Nothing is going to change. We’re not changing one word of that, it’s going to be intact,” White said in a news conference leading up to his first Zuffa Boxing event. “Now fighters are going to have more options. Why is that a bad thing? Why are more options a bad thing? It’s not.”
Would the new bill improve or hurt fighter pay?
Supporters of the bill point to the increased minimums per round fighters will receive and that it could stand to lift all but the top class of fighters. Detractors look at the UFC, which has been sued multiple times for pay suppression, and express concern over the degree of control one organization could have.
Matchroom CEO Eddie Hearn told Boxing Scene in July that the Ali Act in its current form is “nearly always there to protect the fighter and make sure they are not taken advantage of.” Any potential alterations through this new bill, he said, could provide more power to promoters over fighters.
Under the current structure, top fighters can make hundreds of millions of dollars and have opportunities to receive large shares of the proceeds from their fights. For example, Sportico reported Tyson Fury and Oleksander Usyk earned over $100 million each for their two fights against one another. In this system, fighters also pay a percentage of their purse to one of the sanctioning bodies — an issue that has caused consternation with big-name fighters like Terence Crawford and Shakur Stevenson in the past year. A UBO would not be allowed to charge sanctioning fees.
Top women’s boxers in the past five years have seen seven-figure salaries — in contrast to previous years of receiving little money even for title fights. However, the vast majority of fighters make far less money than the top echelon, especially after fees for managers and trainers are taken out of a payday.
The act could help lower-end fighters with a $200-per-round minimum to provide some low-end financial guarantees for fighters.
Big-name shows feature fighters making six-figure paychecks, according to financial data from the California State Athletic Commission, including a $1 million payday for WBO junior lightweight title defender Emmanual Navarette. However, many smaller MMA and boxing shows had no fighters making over $10,000.
If a fighter doesn’t have a fight over a six-month period, he or she would be compensated $2,000. A fighter wouldn’t receive this if he or she is collecting insurance money from an injury or if the fighter turns down a fight.
The bill’s detractors, including many of boxing’s current big-name promoters, see the bill as a way for promotional giant TKO Group Holdings, which encompasses the UFC and the WWE, to circumvent the current system that protects fighters. Some argue that the bill will wind up limiting rather than enhancing fighter pay.
The UFC has faced accusations in the past of underpaying fighters. It settled one landmark antitrust lawsuit in 2024 for $375 million.
The Guardian’s Thomas Hauser obtained a contract for a Zuffa fighter and reported the contract gave the organization the ability to use a fighter’s “identity” to promote Zuffa and products of Zuffa’s sponsors. Fighters would receive an unclear percentage.
At present, fighters often sell sponsor space on their fight trunks, T-shirts and hats. According to The Guardian, Zuffa fighters can wear only Zuffa-approved equipment and gear, which could cost fighters money in lost sponsorship opportunities. This is similar to the UFC’s model.
Are there health care provisions for boxers?
Fighters are often on their own for health care as of now, unless it is written into contracts with promoters for their fights. Promoters must have a minimum of $10,000 in health insurance and $10,000 in accidental death benefits for injuries suffered during fights — the Association for Boxing Commissions recommends $100,000 in health and accidental death benefits per fighter.
Fighters must pass a prefight physical exam certified in writing to the state commission saying the fighter can compete safely. Women must also provide documentation of a negative pregnancy test less than two weeks before a fight. A physician must be present ringside and an ambulance and emergency personnel present on site.
Otherwise, prefight and postfight medical testing varies based on state commissions, which can require more stringent procedures.
Under the Revival Act, all fighters would be required to have annual medical examinations, including a yearly physical along with brain, eye and heart exams and blood work every six months along with the already-required pregnancy test for women fighters. Additionally, it requires brain MRIs “at least every three years” and more frequent tests if a fighter is knocked out. UBOs would have to cover costs. It’s unclear who is responsible for non-UBO fighters.
If a fighter is over 40 and fighting in a UBO, he or she must have bloodwork and urine tests yearly and a chest X-ray at least once every six years. State boxing commissions have their own over-40 rules, including neurological tests.
The UBO must cover costs and provide training and rehab facilities for fighters, health insurance during training periods and medical coordinators to help with requirements. It must also cover costs for any anti-doping program testing incurred during training for a fight.
The fighter still holds responsibilities for health insurance deductibles from the UBO-provided insurance.
Drug testing will also be required for any title bout and “at random for all other matches.”
Could states still impose their own regulations?
The bill contains no prohibitions on state regulations provided they meet the Ali Act baselines. States could also still determine whether to allow a fight based on the state’s own standards.
What other major changes would this bill add?
The bill would allow the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports and the Association of Ringside Physicians to create consistent standards throughout the sport, including a model of legislation and regulation protecting the “safety, health, wellbeing and economic opportunity” of boxers, strict authority guidelines for medical suspension and consensus statements from experts in sports medicine. The ABC has minimal powers and is charged mainly with making recommendations to state commissions. The ABC has no enforcement powers over states.
It would also create recommendations of best practices along with annual compliance reports of boxing commissions adhering to those best practices.
The ABC also would be allowed to certify judges or officials for fights along with state commissions. In the existing law, only state commissions have that power.
“I wanted to make sure the ABC was listed in the federal law,” Mike Mazzulli, the ABC’s past president, told ESPN. “I wanted to make sure the fighter safety was paramount and I wanted to make sure that judges and referees were going to be trained. I wanted to make sure there was going to be minimum payments to the fighters.”
The Revival Act could also streamline titles. Under the current system, some of the sanctioning bodies hand out belts like candy instead of one champion per weight class. The Revival Act says “a sanctioning organization or unified boxing organization shall award only 1 championship title for each weight class.”
There is a carve-out for interim titles in cases of injury, illness, the refusal to defend a belt or the inability to travel. This could stop hold-ups in some weight classes where fighters don’t defend belts for months or, in some cases, over a year.
