If Dana White, the UFC CEO and head of the new Saudi Arabia-funded TKO boxing promotion, wanted to fully assert his political muscle given his years-long friendship with President Trump and a Republican-ruled Congress, he likely could institute wholesale changes to the Muhammad Ali Act that requires safeguards and firewalls to protect boxers\u2019 financial and health interests.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the intention that has emerged through preliminary meetings with boxing regulators.<\/p>\n
An alarm was sounded this week, when a memo to state regulators was posted on the website Combat Sports Law.<\/p>\n
In it, Association of Boxing Commissions President Mike Mazzulli wrote to the regulators, \u201cPresently, the UFC\/TKO is requesting an amendment change to the Muhammad Ali Act. The board of directors is working with them to make sure the ABC is still part of the federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mazzulli\u2019s message in that final sentence is clear: White can likely wrangle up the votes to alter the Muhammad Ali Act however he wants.<\/p>\n
Yet, TKO is asking for far less than that now.<\/p>\n
The promotion is seeking to function like the UFC model by awarding its own \u201cTKO\u201d belts to the champions of the limited weight classes once the promotion begins staging bouts, likely in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike the UFC, they want to sign fighters, put them in a league and provide belts to them,\u201d said an official who\u2019s been briefed on TKO\u2019s position but is unauthorized to speak publicly on the matter because of the preliminary nature of the talks.<\/p>\n
White\u2019s former boss, ex-UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta, adopted a philosophy of \u201crunning to regulation\u201d after mixed martial arts was panned in its formative years by the late Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) as \u201chuman cockfighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UFC was first regulated by the commissions in Nevada, New Jersey and Mazzulli\u2019s Mohegan Sun Tribe portion of Connecticut.<\/p>\n
In a diligent national effort to communicate and meet regulator concerns and requests led by former Nevada Athletic Commission head Marc Ratner, the UFC won state-by-state approval, finally appearing in New York for a 2016 debut after a powerful culinary union that protested Fertitta\u2019s non-union employment of workers at his Las Vegas hotels was silenced by legislature votes.<\/p>\n
This TKO effort is similarly characterized as a \u201crun to regulation\u201d by explaining that the promotion prefers to award its own belts in its circuit rather than ask for minor versions of belts from the four major sanctioning bodies, WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF.<\/p>\n
TKO\u2019s interest is adjusting a clause in the Ali Act that would allow for that additional belt in its case alone. The body of the federal law \u2013 requiring contract disclosures and other protections \u2013 would remain unchanged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Dana White, the UFC CEO and head of the new Saudi Arabia-funded TKO boxing promotion, wanted to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,4779,4778,4777,79,4776,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-7583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-boxing-scene","11":"tag-dana-white","12":"tag-muhammad-ali-act","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tko","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114313172961713816","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}