Boxing Needs Change, But Handing Control to a Few Is Not the Solution

I have spent more than 25 years working around boxing. I have seen good times, bad times, and periods when we have declared the sport dead, only to watch boxing produce another great fight months later and remind everyone of its extraordinary ability to survive.

But I also believe it would be a mistake to deny what has become increasingly evident. Boxing is going through a difficult period and needs change. The problem is that recognizing something is broken does not mean that every proposed solution is necessarily a good one.

That is precisely my main concern with the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act of 2026, legislation that seeks to introduce a model of Unified Boxing Organizations (UBOs) and recently advanced through the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. Supporters of the legislation present UBOs as a voluntary alternative capable of operating alongside boxing’s traditional system.

Not Everything in the Reform Is Bad

We should begin by acknowledging that. The legislation contains measures that could benefit fighters. It establishes a minimum purse of $200 per round, increases minimum medical coverage to $50,000 for injuries sustained during a bout, and establishes $15,000 in accidental death coverage. It also includes provisions addressing drug testing and medical care.

I support improving those protections. The problem begins when those improvements come together with a much deeper transformation of boxing’s economic structure.

A UBO could organize fights, contract fighters, and establish its own rankings and championships within the new legal framework. The proposal is intended to allow organizations structured more like leagues, similar to the UFC in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), to operate alongside boxing’s traditional system, which is regulated and sanctioned by the four major world governing bodies — the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxing Federation (IBF), and World Boxing Organization (WBO) — overseen by local commissions, and operated and financed by multiple promoters and broadcasting platforms.

And that is where we need to pay very close attention. The current model has enormous problems, but further centralizing boxing’s economic power could create problems even greater than those we are trying to solve.

Muhammad Ali Did Not Fight to Give Promoters More Power

The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act was created precisely because there has historically been an enormous imbalance of power between fighters and those who control the business.

The boxer risks his health, takes the punches, and has an extremely short career. Yet, too often, the fighter is the person with the least information and the weakest negotiating position within an entire economic structure built around his or her talent. That was one of the fundamental principles behind the Ali Act.

That is why I am concerned about any reform that could ultimately rebuild the business around organizations capable of concentrating functions that have traditionally been separated. A structure that combines promotion, fighter contracts, rankings, and championships could ultimately give the operator extraordinary power over a fighter’s career.

We do not need much imagination to understand the potential problem. If an organization controls certain fighters, establishes its own rankings, promotes its own events, and owns its own championship, how much negotiating power does a boxer who needs access to those opportunities really have?

Nico Ali Walsh and Concessions That Deserve Examination

I also understand Nico Ali Walsh’s position. He initially expressed concerns about the legislation and later decided to support it after working with Senators Ted Cruz and Jacky Rosen to incorporate changes. The lawmakers themselves publicly acknowledged that Ali Walsh participated in that process and that his proposals influenced the revised version.

I do not question his intentions. I believe Nico genuinely thinks he helped improve legislation that might have moved forward anyway. My question is different. Do those concessions fundamentally change the structure of the proposal? I do not believe they do.

The provisions involving transparency, rankings, and contracts are particularly important. Some of the new measures look significant on paper, but they do not necessarily reproduce the same protections and appeal mechanisms that exist within the traditional system.

And there is something important we should remember. In legislation, just as in boxing contracts, what matters is not only what a provision appears to say. What also matters is who has the power to enforce it.

Six Years Can Be Almost an Entire Career

There is another detail that deserves much more discussion. The Senate version establishes that certain contracts between a UBO and a boxer could extend for as long as six years, while a fighter’s first professional promotional agreement would be limited to three years.

Six years in most industries may simply sound like six years. In boxing, six years can represent an enormous portion of a professional career. A boxer can go from prospect to contender to world champion within that period. That is why any system that allows lengthy contracts while the same organization controls opportunities, events, and competitive positions must be examined with enormous care.

Boxing’s Problems Are Real

I also do not want to defend the current system as though it works perfectly. It does not. We have too many championships, too many competing interests, promoters who for decades have protected their investments by avoiding certain matchups, and sanctioning organizations whose rankings are often difficult to justify.

We have also lost important television outlets, while the sport has become fragmented across multiple platforms. Traditional promoters themselves share responsibility for this situation. I am convinced of that. But there is an enormous difference between reforming boxing and concentrating boxing.

There Is Another Way

Instead of creating a structure that allows promotion, rankings, and championships to become increasingly concentrated, why not reform the very things that make it so difficult for the best fighters to face the best? Much stricter ranking criteria could be established. A champion should not automatically disappear from the rankings of other sanctioning organizations simply because he holds another belt.

Mechanisms could also be created to encourage, or even require, more eliminators, unification fights, and champion versus champion matchups. That would directly address one of the biggest problems in modern boxing, the difficulty of making the best fights. And it could be done without handing control over fighters’ careers to an increasingly centralized structure.

The UFC Model Works, But We Should Ask for Whom

It is impossible to analyze all of this without looking at MMA. The UFC has built an extraordinarily successful product. It has a recognizable brand, a permanent schedule, its own rankings, identifiable champions, and the ability to consistently match fighters who belong to the same competitive ecosystem. From a business perspective, it is a formidable model.

But boxing must ask itself whether solving its problems requires copying a system in which virtually the entire competitive chain revolves around a single company. Because business efficiency and athlete protection do not always mean the same thing.

One of the great economic advantages of that model is precisely its concentration. One company controls the product and can market it as an integrated whole. That may make the sport easier to sell. The question is how much power we are willing to surrender in exchange.

Be Careful Not to Destroy Something While Trying to Save It

Boxing needs change. We need better fights, fewer championships, transparent rankings, stronger medical standards, better opportunities for prospects and, above all, fighters must receive a fair share of the money they generate. But I am not convinced that achieving those goals requires building a system in which a small number of organizations can accumulate even more power.

The Ali Act was born because, for decades, the boxer was the most vulnerable part of the business. It would be an enormous historical contradiction if legislation carrying Muhammad Ali’s name ultimately facilitated precisely what that original reform sought to protect fighters against, a relationship in which those who control the opportunities hold too much power over those who take the punches.

Reform boxing, modernize boxing and save whatever needs to be saved. But never forget something fundamental. Without fighters, there is no boxing business. And any reform that is truly good for the sport must begin and end by protecting them.

About the Author

Ludo Sáenz Lorenzo-Luaces is a Panamanian journalist specializing in boxing and the founder and director of NotiFight. With more than 25 years of experience covering the sport internationally, he is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) and a voter for the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF). He has received multiple awards from international boxing organizations for his journalistic work, including honors from the WBA, WBC, and IBA. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Communications at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB).