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The focus of those touting the newly proposed bill to alter the Professional Boxing Act of 1996 – best known as the Muhammad Ali act – is on health-and-safety upgrades that would come with the legislation’s passage.
Applying a greater level of scrutiny and skepticism, others affected by the changes see game-changing manipulations meant to favor the new TKO boxing organization backing the bill.
The core cause of the legislation is that it will allow TKO – like its sister combat-sports company UFC – to distribute its own belts in the weight classes in which it opts to stage fights.
TKO will, additionally, be free to rank the fighters in the given divisions – acts that would stand as violations of the active regulations. And while the health and safety provisions include minimum-pay requirements of $150 per round, $25,000 in medical coverage for fighters requiring treatment for injuries and illness that occur before and up to 24 hours after the fight – along with MRIs, EKGs, pregnancy tests and drugs testing – small-club promoters smell a rat.
Noting that fight-card insurance expenses have all but dried up the club scene in New York, some club promoters elsewhere in America fear that these new requirements – if approved – will compromise their ability to retain promising fighters and produce shows, easing TKO’s recruitment of the young fighters it’s looking to build its UFC-like stable with.
“I don’t believe they have the fighters’ best interest in mind,” said former 154lbs boxing champion Austin Trout, a boxers’ advocate. “Does the UFC have a reputation for being pro-fighter, or do fighters just have to take what they get and be happy with it?”
One small-club promoter, who spoke to BoxingScene on the condition of anonymity because of the fear of retribution, said that creating a minimum pay standard – although it’s a lower figure than what fighters earn in most states – and improving health safeguards is a noble gesture, but that surrendering control to TKO could result in a fixed fight-and-pay schedule that would be prohibitive as the contractual bounds drag on.
Earlier in 2025 BoxingScene reviewed contracts sent to fighters by a company recruiting fighters for TKO’s promotion.
The TKO boxing venture isn’t expected to stage its first card until sometime in 2026, the company announced in a news release.
The contract read, “The company shall guarantee boxer the opportunity to participate in bouts every five months during the term commencing with the first bout, and shall make good-faith efforts to offer boxer the opportunity to participate in four bouts during the first year”, stipulating that purses will be increased based on the fighters’ ability to reach the top 10 set by “the company” and climb the rankings.
There is set to be $20,000 for a 10-round bout by an unranked fighter, $50,000 when ranked by “the company” at fifth to 10th, $125,000 when ranked by the company at third to fourth, $375,000 when challenging for the “company” championship, and $750,000 when defending the “company” championship.
“They’re trying to revoke some of the protections the Ali Act provides,” Trout said. “If someone controls the rankings, and they control the belts, then they control it all. That’s a monopoly.”
Yet, a veteran boxing official said TKO wouldn’t be exerting much greater control over its rankings than some allege powerful promoter Top Rank is influencing with the WBO, and Premier Boxing Champions has wielded with the WBA.
TKO staff met with Association of Boxing Commissions head Mike Mazzulli before US representative Brian Jack (R-Georgia) crafted the bill.
One individual connected to those talks told BoxingScene: “We did the best we could with what we had. This was going to pass one way or another.”
UFC chief executive Dana White, who’ll promote on September 13 the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-Terence Crawford card on Netflix and preside over the TKO promotion, is close friends with president Donald Trump, who has majority Republican support in both houses of congress.
In spite of his resistance to change the Ali Act, Trout bemoaned the toothless enforcement of it over the years, blaming the sanctioning bodies for undue influence over the ABC.
Trout previously sued the WBO for dropping him from mandatory title challenger to out of the rankings, and was left to watch his top-ranked replacement Liam Smith gain a lucrative title shot at Canelo Alvarez, taking away a possible multi-million-dollar rematch that Trout believed should have been his.
Trout said he was told by the ABC that the Ali Act was violated, but he couldn’t prove that there were financial damages.
“Are you kidding me?” Trout said. “As it is right now, the Muhammad Ali Act doesn’t protect anybody, and I’m living proof of that. They turned the Muhammad Ali Act into Martin Luther King Boulevard… it was supposed to mean great honor for a pioneer in the game, but it doesn’t protect anyone and it’s actually dangerous.”
Mazzulli is due to step down as head of the ABC in August.
“The ABC needs to uphold the Act,” Trout said. “The belts are telling them what to do. There has to be a whole new committee. If no one’s going to uphold the rules, what is the point of the rules? That’s boxing in a nutshell.”
