California votes 6-0 to endorse Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act
What's next? Possible price controls on sanctioning bodies. Who benefits?
The fix was in, but you already knew that. Actually, I’m quite surprised how many people didn’t believe that the California State Athletic Commission’s 6-0 vote on Wednesday to support the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act was already predetermined.
The only thing that wasn’t predetermined was this really special and urgent mid-October meeting. California’s endorsement was supposed to happen last month before the Canelo-Crawford fight in Las Vegas. That meeting went off the rails. Andy Foster wasn’t prepared for the public backlash and complete lack of industry support for MAABRA. The commission chose an off-ramp of creating a subcommittee to return with their own yea-or-nay findings… in December.
However, a few things changed along the way that prompted Sacramento to rush to reconvene ASAP to do Nick Khan’s bidding. There was the Canelo vs. Crawford fight at Allegiant Stadium on Netflix. Zuffa Boxing landed a spot on Paramount.
And, breaking overnight, Blake “Axe” Avignon is reporting that Paramount allegedly has interest in acquiring the services of ESPN middle management suits Glenn Jacobs and Matt Kenny to oversee Paramount’s combat sports portfolio.
So much for a “refresh” of UFC content on Paramount. More of the same, this time reportedly without Jimmy Pitaro’s adult supervision.
If Mr. Kenny is heading to Paramount, here is a preview of his (past) playbook overseeing ESPN+ for Disney.
The timeline is rapidly accelerating for TKO to make its moves with Zuffa Boxing.
As Nick Khan highlighted at Wednesday’s CSAC meeting, network broadcasters are not interested in spending big money on boxing programming. Capital is drying up fast.
Top Rank still has not secured a major media rights deal. Matchroom Boxing has DAZN UK rights expiring in July 2026. PBC’s October show in Las Vegas was postponed, and now they are putting all their chips in for a December outing in San Antonio. Golden Boy has an event in a few weeks in Fort Worth, Texas.
Without much resistance, TKO has significant political and financial influence to push for the amendment of the Ali Act, creating Unified Boxing Organizations.
As John Nash of the Hey Not the Face podcast recently discovered, there’s a tentatively scheduled Congressional hearing set for November 5th in the United States House Committee on Education and Workforce. This was inadvertently revealed in an endorsement letter for the Ali Boxing Revival Act to Congress written by PBC promoter Tom Brown. We’ll see if this meeting happens as previously planned, given the current US Federal Government shutdown.
Regardless of when the first Congressional meeting occurs, TKO is ready to ram through the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act on a bipartisan basis with little to no institutional political opposition.
Instead, opposition to MAABRA is all on the outside-looking-in. Despite Big John McCarthy’s claims at Wednesday’s CSAC meeting, there is widespread organic opposition. The problem is that no major active boxers voiced any protest. The protesting is coming largely from past and present actors under the UFC umbrella. Fighters, managers, trainers, and journalists.
The fix may have been in at Wednesday’s California meeting to endorse MAABRA, but that didn’t mean everything was for naught. There were some very interesting comments made on the record — and some potential secrets that require scrutiny.