Nick Khan outlines plans for Zuffa Boxing, amendments to Muhammad Ali Act
Nick Khan laid out his case for amendments to the Muhammad Ali Act today on The Pat McAfee Show.
Khan appeared on the show to promote TKO’s plans for Zuffa Boxing, and the proposed amendments the company wants to add to the Ali Act, which was enacted in 2000 to protect fighters from exploitive promoters among other aims.
The amendments, introduced this summer, would allow Zuffa Boxing to create its own rankings, title fights, and divisions outside of traditional sanctioning bodies.
Khan said:
“Everything that the act already has, will stay the same,” Khan said on the show.
“If you’re a fighter and you want to continue with it, nothing changes. This is presenting an ‘or,’ a different option where if you want to come into a unified boxing organization like Zuffa, or anyone else who wants to create a unified boxing organization, come here, fight with us, we’ll have own rankings system, the champion will fight the number one contender, just like in the UFC.”
Regarding how Zuffa will rank its fighters and determine title challengers, he said they will use a system similar to The Ring Magazine, throwing in a Ric Flair reference in his description.
“We’re basing our model, in part, on The Ring’s model, the champion fights the number one contender. The lineal champion, if you will. To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man, not to make this about Ric Flair, but that’s exactly what you have to do for the Ring Championship belt. It would be the same thing in Zuffa.”
Critics of the amendments believe they gut key protections in the act, including financial transparency, which could lead to exploitation of fighters. Further concerns exist regarding reduced protection from promoter/manager overlap and that the changes give too much control to a unified boxing organization, such as Zuffa.
The California State Athletic Commission voted unanimously to support the proposed amendments in October.
Shortly after, The Association of Professional Boxing Commissions released a statement calling the amendments “an abomination.”
“This so-called Revival Act, however, is a disgrace as it will open the door for self serving ‘Unified Boxing Organizations’ (UBOs) to operate outside the current sanctioning framework, effectively allowing one corporation, in this case T.K.O. Group, to both regulate and promote under its own banner,” said said APBC President Albert Low.
Combat sports regulatory lawyer and founder of combatsportslaw.com, Erik Magraken, spoke to The Guardian about the proposed amendments in August, saying:
“It guts the key protections from the Ali Act for promoters that choose to use the ‘unified boxing organization’ model. It allows a promoter to control rank and title … and achieve a stranglehold on the sport.”
Khan’s full appearance on The Pat McAfee Show is available below:
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.