By Jeffrey T. Donner, Esq.

I watched today’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing, “Return to Your Corners: Have Federal Boxing Laws Gone the Distance or Slipped the Jab?,” with real interest because it raised a larger question than boxing politics. The real issue is whether Congress should preserve a broken status quo in the name of tradition, or allow an alternative structure that gives fighters and fans something boxing too rarely delivers under the current regime: actual fights, coherent competition, and more opportunity. The House-passed Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act creates an optional unified-boxing path rather than abolishing the legacy model, and Chairman Ted Cruz said today that he expects to introduce a Senate version of the bill. (Senate Commerce Committee)

I understand the objections. Oscar De La Hoya testified today against the bill and argued that a Unified Boxing Organization, or UBO, would create a closed system that controls rankings, titles, and access to opportunity. He framed the proposal as a shift in power away from fighters and toward corporate control. That is a serious criticism, and Oscar is entitled to make it. But it is also fair to say that he is defending the economic architecture in which traditional promoters, sanctioning bodies, and fragmented incentives have long operated. I like Oscar. I respect what he did in the ring. But on this issue, he is fighting not only for principle, but also for his own wallet. (Senate Commerce Committee)

Freedom in boxing means more options, not fewer

The best argument for the Ali Revival Act is the simplest one: it creates more freedom. The bill expressly states that one of its purposes is to provide “increased choice and opportunity” by allowing a professional boxer to choose to participate in an alternative system offered by a UBO. Chairman Cruz said the same thing today when he described the bill as creating a pathway for a unified, league-style structure to exist alongside the current system. In other words, this is not a federal order abolishing traditional boxing. It is Congress permitting an additional lawful structure to exist. That is more freedom, not less. (House Docs)

That point matters because critics often talk as if the bill would hand boxing over to one company. But the written testimony supporting the bill says the opposite: a UBO is “not a mandate,” boxers are “free to participate or not,” and multiple UBOs can exist. Nick Khan went further and stated that the framework is open to any qualifying promoter, naming Golden Boy, Top Rank, and MVPW as examples of entities that could form a UBO if they chose to meet the statutory standards. Whether one likes Khan’s business interests or not, that is the structure being proposed: optional participation and the possibility of multiple competing UBOs.

Nobody is forced to join Zuffa—or anyone else

That brings me to the second major point. Nobody is forced to join Zuffa. Nobody is forced to join any UBO. The entire premise of the bill is that the legacy model remains available while a different model becomes lawful and regulated. If a boxer wants to remain in the alphabet-belt ecosystem, he can. If a promoter wants to keep doing business under the existing fragmented structure, it can. The bill does not nationalize boxing; it deregulates part of the market by allowing an alternative system to coexist with the old one. (Senate Commerce Committee)

And once that is understood, a further point becomes obvious. More lawful pathways usually mean more paid opportunities. That is not a slogan; it is basic market logic. If multiple UBOs can exist, and if more fight cards can be organized under a more centralized and predictable structure, more athletes should be able to earn money as professional boxers. Many of those fighters may never become pound-for-pound stars. Fine. They are still professional athletes. Under the current legacy model, too many of those men would never get meaningful activity at all. That is an inference from the bill’s open-entry design and from testimony that the current system has too often failed to produce cards, development pathways, and coherent matchmaking.

The MMA comparison is relevant here. Khan’s testimony argues that the growth of a regulated, centralized structure in MMA did not eliminate other professional opportunities; it helped build the infrastructure of the sport, and the beneficiaries ultimately included fans, athletes, and a multiplicity of MMA leagues. One can disagree with his optimism, but he is right about this much: sports do not grow by endlessly preserving dysfunction. They grow when someone can actually build something.

The current boxing model is broken

The strongest reason to pass the bill is not theory. It is the undeniable failure of the current model. Chairman Cruz’s prepared remarks today described a boxing landscape marked by multiple sanctioning bodies, competing interests, and recurring barriers to organizing major fights. He specifically noted that highly anticipated fights are delayed or never materialize because of promotional disputes, and that multiple fighters are often recognized simultaneously as champions in the same weight class. That is a diplomatic way of saying what boxing fans already know: the product is confusing, diluted, and too often unsatisfying. (Senate Commerce Committee)

Nick Khan’s written testimony put a sharper point on it, using the six-year delay between the first serious demand for Mayweather-Pacquiao and the fight itself as a symbol of a sport with no mechanism to ensure that the best fight the best. He argued that champions are frequently kept from one another by competing promotional interests. Again, one does not need to accept every part of his testimony to recognize the truth in that criticism. Boxing marinated one of the biggest fights in modern history until it was past its ideal moment. Fans have watched versions of that same story repeat for years.

That is why I am not persuaded by appeals to the sanctity of the present system. A structure that produces endless belts, multiple “champions,” long inactivity, and constant excuses is not a system that should be treated as untouchable. It is a system that should be challenged. If the status quo were working, Congress would not be revisiting the issue in 2026 with a serious House-passed reform bill already on the table. (Senate Commerce Committee)

The bill also raises real floors for fighter protection

Even those focused mainly on market structure should not ignore the fighter-protection side of the legislation. The bill includes a minimum pay floor per round, requires contracts to provide either a fight every six months or compensation if the boxer is left inactive, caps contracts at six years, and allows boxers in the final 30 days of a contract to communicate with another UBO or promoter. On the safety side, the bill adds medical, insurance, and anti-doping requirements beyond what many jurisdictions currently require. (House Docs)

That is not just paper reform. Timothy Shipman of the Florida Athletic Commission testified that the bill includes safety enhancements that align with, and in some respects exceed, Florida’s already high standards. He also stated that UBOs are intended to expand pathways for fighters to compete, improve compensation, increase access to medical care, and provide more consistent training opportunities. That is not the testimony of a boxing romantic. It is the testimony of a regulator. (Senate Commerce Committee)

My view after watching today’s hearing

My takeaway from today’s hearing is straightforward. The Ali Revival Act should pass. Not because every corporation that might use it is pure. Not because every concern raised by Oscar De La Hoya is frivolous. And not because centralized structures are always superior. It should pass because the present system has earned skepticism, not deference. It should pass because freedom means allowing more than one lawful model to exist. It should pass because no boxer is compelled to join a UBO. And it should pass because a sport that cannot reliably produce the fights fans want, while leaving too many athletes idle in the process, is a sport that needs reform. (Senate Commerce Committee)

In my view, the real choice is not between purity and corruption. It is between a legacy system that has plainly failed to organize itself and an optional alternative that may finally force boxing to function like a modern sport. Congress should stop pretending that dysfunction is tradition.

The Senate should pass the Ali Revival Act. (Senate Commerce Committee)