Congress prepares to gut Ali Act, boxing media falls in line

Dana White and Turki Alalshikh are looking to export the former’s predatory business model to boxing with Congressional backing

Months after Dana White and Turki Alalshikh revealed their desire to gut the Ali Act in order to import UFC’s hideously exploitative practices into their new “TKO” boxing league, United States Representatives Brian Jack (R) and Sharice Davids (D) have introduced the “Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act” to implement those goals.

Chris Mannix gave Jack a softball interview to try and manufacture consent, as did ESPN’s Brett Okamoto and Sportico’s Michael McCann. Mike Coppinger, who writes for Alalshikh’s ideologically captured Ring Magazine, likewise touted the bill’s virtues while lying about the current rules regarding sanctioning bodies.

Though gussied up with attractive-sounding provisions like a guaranteed minimum payment of $150/round for fighters (which two seconds of mental math reveal as a complete joke), the bill would allow for “Unified Boxing Organizations (UBOs) where new entities can offer fighters matchups and a structure that doesn’t mandate they contend with the pay-to-play sanctioning body system.”

This is, as even the most hagiographic pieces concede, a mirror of the UFC model, breaking down the barrier between promoters and sanctioning bodies. I am the last person alive who would claim the current setup is good or even functional on the best of days, but even the flimsy pretense of an independent rankings system is better than one entirely subject to the whims of oligarchs.

“Everybody knows the format—the best fight the best,” White said in March. “You work your way up the rankings, and once somebody breaks into the top five [and] there is no question [about] who the best five guys are in each weight class, they fight it out. And once somebody holds that belt, you don’t need three letters in front of the belt. Whoever has that belt is the best in the world in that weight class. It’s a very simple model.”

This is, as has long been obvious, complete crap. Sean O’Malley just “earned” a rematch with Merab Dvalishvili by sitting on his ass while Dvalishvili dispatched the much more dangerous Umar Nurmagomedov. Movsar Evloev has won nine straight in the Octagon and they tried to pit him against all-risk, no-reward wrecking machine Aaron Pico in the latter’s UFC debut. Yair Rodriguez has been stopped in two of his last three fights and they were planning to give him another title shot to headline an event in Mexico City.

And that’s not even mentioning them letting Jon Jones waste years of Tom Aspinall’s prime for nothing.

There are, thankfully, those out there willing to speak up; BoxRec’s Grey Johnson goes into detail on the dangers this system poses to the club scene and Erik Magraken is sounding the alarm. It’s also worth noting that Congress is so egregiously dysfunctional at the moment that there’s no guarantee the bill ever makes it to the House floor, much less the Senate.

It won’t even hit the Commerce committee until at least September, as Congress will be in recess through the entirety of August and House Republican leadership elected to skip town early to avoid having to vote on the release of documents related to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

As Grey mentions, you’re going to deal with a fire hose of disingenuous commentary on the bill’s contents over the next couple months. Luckily for us, Jack already gave the game away by claiming that the current structure of the Ali Act “stifled investment and discouraged innovation.”

If this wording is familiar to you, it’s because they’re the bogus aphorisms legislators break out to justify axing regulations meant to protect the environment or human health. They’re using the same language they use to describe letting companies dump agricultural runoff and human waste directly into water sources.

Believe it or not, I would really rather not have to think or talk about politics in the context of people bludgeoning each other for fun and profit, but the thing about politics is that it tends to creep its way into everything whether you like it or not. Take nothing you read at face value and make noise.