“It’s Over for the Sport” – MMA Insider Sounds Alarm on UFC’s Boxing Move & Ali Act Repeal

If Dana White and Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel succeed in repealing the Ali Act, that’ll be all she wrote for the sport of boxing according to one MMA analyst.

Last year, White revealed that after years of teasing his entry into the sport, that 2025 would be his time to finally invade the squared circle. Little else has been said about it until recently when Emanuel appeared on The Pat McAfee Show and revealed that they were “seriously” looking at entering the boxing scene sooner rather than later.

“We’re starting to talk about boxing,” Emanuel said. “We’re kind of looking at that right now. I think you’ve got the Ali Act that hurt it. Hopefully, who knows what’s going to happen with the Ali Act. And then Dana has a plan for boxing. We’ll see. There’s a lot of work. A lot of wood that’s got to be chopped there, but we’re looking at it pretty seriously” (h/t MMA Fighting).

For those unfamiliar, the Ali Act is a piece of legislation first enacted on May 26, 2000, that offers several protections for boxers, namely that promoters must divulge revenue to fighters, limits the amount of time promoters can hold fighters under contract, and separates title belts and rankings from promoters.

As it stands, the Ali Act does not extend to MMA fighters and the UFC intends on keeping it that way. In fact, some have suggested that White’s hesitancy to jump head-first into the boxing business is directly related to the Ali Act.

Emanuel’s comments have left many within the business concerned that the UFC’s parent company could be working to alter or repeal the Ali Act altogether ahead of the company’s long-awaited entry into the sport.

MMA Journalist Luke Thomas warns what repealing the Ali Act could do to the sport

Offering his take during a recent episode of the Morking Kombat podcast, MMA journalist Luke Thomas believes that repealing the Ali Act would spell certain disaster for the sweet science.

“It’s over for the sport if they do that… It prevents managers from being promoters. You can’t, as a promoter, offer a contract where you say, ‘Hey, if you sign with me, I’ll give you a title shot. You’ve got to sign for five years.’ That is illegal. By the way, there’s a legal mechanism in place if it needs to be enforced.

“Of course, there’s jail time and fines, but that’s just an enforcement mechanism built into the law. The big part is that it codifies that the promoter cannot own the titles. The sanctioning bodies, if they’re going to rank a guy, have to explain why his ranking position moved. And, of course, it also deals with financial transparency. This is the reason—if someone asks you why boxers make more than MMA fighters, this is the reason.”

“In 2000, the Ali Act was created to try to protect fighters’ rights and welfare, to aid state commissions by giving them the power to keep things clean, and to ensure that a manager and a promoter can’t be the same gig,” Thomas’ co-host Brian Campbell added. “That type of stuff, etc.”