Comments Thread For: Conor McGregor May Help in Push To Extend Ali Act To MMA

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

Mixed martial arts superstar Conor McGregor could speak in the United States Congress to help with a campaign to extend the legal protections enjoyed by boxers to MMA fighters, according to Congressman Markwayne Mullin. Mullin, a former fighter, is trying to get a bill passed which would extend the "Ali Act" - which protects the rights of boxers - to MMA. He says McGregor, who lost a multi-million dollar boxing bout against Floyd Mayweather last month after switching fighting codes, may help him to do it.
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[Pigeons]

Obviously this legislation should apply to all practitioners of combat sports in the USA including boxing, kickboxing, and MMA. I'm not sure why this law only applies to boxing.

[THEFRESHBRAWLER]

UFC is not even close in closing the gap on boxing.

[Phenom]

This would pretty much kill the UFC

[Boxing42]

UFC is not even close in closing the gap on boxing.

How so? boxing is the most competitive combat sport but I take it you're talking about business?

[Scipio2009]

This would pretty much kill the UFC

Pretty much, but not really.

Beyond all of the fluff, the Ali Act helped fighters see how much money was actually on the table.

Conor McGregor basically built himself into being so big a star that, for at least his fights, the UFC had to basically open the books to him.

Outside of McGregor though, maybe with Jon Jones if he doesn't get banned, there's no other fighter in the UFC to drive that hard bargain with the UFC.

[Kiowhatta]

The Ali act is a toothless tiger - boxing is one of the most corrupt sports in the world.

Although I think the UFC is the opposite extreme and needs to reform. Do UFC fans want 5 belts per division? More divisions? Promoters bribing everyone in sight and locking up fighters with exclusive contracts?

[uniquehump]

Obviously this legislation should apply to all practitioners of combat sports in the USA including boxing, kickboxing, and MMA. I'm not sure why this law only applies to boxing.

I'm thinking because it's named after Ali, boxing was the sport that this legislation was focused on at the time, while the other sports didn't have much public interest. Now that MMA is more popular now than it was back when this law was first applied to boxing and we are starting to see fighters crossover to various combat sports, I'm sure that this law will soon be applicable to kickboxing and MMA.

[Butch.McRae]

There's no chance this legislation will extend to the UFC. The Ali Act was about transparency and fighter safety. The UFC doesn't have those issues.

There is a valid argument for a fighters' union though. However, there are strong forces that would likely prevent that from becoming a thing anytime soon.

[Boxing Goat]

Lets see how many people come on here and trash Conor even with an awesome prospect of doing something like that to help his sport.