WWE President Nick Khan takes boxing to task over Ali Act

Whether you agree with the Zuffa Boxing model for boxing or not, Nick Khan came off as the most prepared person at Wednesday's Senate Committee hearing on the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act.

While his opponents, Oscar De La Hoya and Nico Ali Walsh (grandson of Muhammad Ali), said that the current state of boxing is mostly fine as is, Nick Khan says the sport is just about dead.

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Khan listed all the ways boxing has fallen from its pedestal as America's biggest sport.

Boxing was bigger than football and basketball, so much bigger that when Sugar Ray Leonard was making $8 million to fight, the average NFL salary in 1980 was $80,000. "Talent follows money; the best athletes in America chose boxing then."

But that is a bad analogy because boxing is still one of the highest-paying sports, and every year there is at least one boxer who is among the top-earning athletes. While MMA athletes are infamously absent from those lists.

Khan also notes that there has been only one U.S. male Olympic boxing gold medalist in the last 30 years, and none in the last 20.

But this is, at least partly, because many American athletes skip the Olympics to turn pro. Some of the biggest American names in the sport, including David Benavidez, Boots Ennis, Ryan Garcia, and Devin Haney, all skipped the Olympics to turn pro. And there are plenty of boxers who did compete but came up just short (Keyshawn Davis, one of the best fighters in the world now, took silver, losing to Cuba's Andy Cruz).

But to get the Ali Revival Act passed the way he and the TKO stakeholders want, Khan needs to portray boxing in a much worse light than it actually is. The thing is, though, there is plenty to pick at when it comes to boxing.

Even Nico Ali Walsh admitted, boxing isn't perfect. To say the least.

The sanctioning bodies hold the belts that the fighters covet, but if you asked fighters if they would prefer to abolish the sanctioning bodies and keep the belts, more than a few would take that offer.

Khan says the sanctioning bodies' "business model is charging boxers money for the right to be called champions," citing the 163 champions across the WBC's 18 weight classes. "But the more champions, the more fees to the sanctioning bodies. And those fees come straight out of the champions' purses, usually 3%."

But enough about the failures of the current boxing landscape. What will the Ali Act do for fighters?

According to Khan, the unified boxing organizations (UBOs) that would be legal under the revised act could "promote competition, develop talent, and enforce consistent standards across one roof."

Benefits for fighters include a minimum pay of $200 per round, which exceeds the minimum in every state except California, where it matches (note that the Ali Revival Act's minimum wage doesn't go a single cent over California's standard).

The Revival Act would also require UBOs to offer mandatory injury insurance up to $50,000, and health insurance would begin during training camp rather than just on the night of the fight. A six-year cap on contracts also allows for more freedom.

Oscar De La Hoya, Nico Ali Walsh make their case against Zuffa Boxing

Committee chairperson Ted Cruz set Nick Khan up with a softball question.

The Senator from Texas wanted to know who the current middleweight champion is, and Khan rattled off Carlos Adames, Erislandy Lara and Janibek Alimkhanuly, noting that there isn't just one champion.

Compare that to football, basketball, or any other sport, and you start to see the problem. There is no one champion. Cruz compared that to boxing in the 80's when Marvelous Marvin Hagler reigned as the undisputed middleweight champion for 8 years and you really start to see the problem.

However, De La Hoya pointed out that, throughout most of Hagler's reign, there were three sanctioning bodies. Today, there are four, and if Zuffa Boxing has its way, there will be five. Hagler was the unified champion because he beat all the other champions, not because there weren't other champions to beat.

Ali Walsh backed up this point. Fighting to become a unified champion actually increases the stakes. Hagler's reign as middleweight champion was strengthened by the multi-belt system, not harmed by it.

As for Zuffa's pitch to young boxers who may want to join their organization, Khan says Zuffa doesn't want to get rid of the sanctioning bodies, just provide an alternative.

"This provides an additional option. If you want a chance to be something bigger over a shorter period of time, on a platform that has almost 80 million subscribers worldwide. If you want that exposure, you want trading card deals, if you want merchandise deals, if you want videogame deals, if you want all of that plus more, come this way; if you don't, that's your choice."

Khan noted some of the employee benefits TKO offers to retired WWE fighters that keep them paid years after they leave the ring. But he didn't mention the labor struggles the UFC is currently facing.

Current UFC star Sean Strickland called UFC pay "predatory." Fighters using their post-fight interviews to advocate for more money has become a meme at this point.

De La Hoya defended the sanctioning body fees, saying all the money is going back to the sport. "I would rather, as a fighter, pay that small percentage of money that I'm making out of my huge purse instead of making just 15% of the profits while the big corporate companies make 85% of the profits."

But Cruz didn't even hear him. He immediately started commenting on Senator Moreno's naked attempt to get Nick Khan to have WrestleMania in Cleveland, Ohio.

Which is why it seems like the passage of the Ali Revival Act is inevitable.

Khan and TKO are too embedded; the government is too checked out; and their argument that they can coexist with the sanctioning bodies is actually true.

For now.

But Dana White has proven he has little patience for working with the other promoters, and his battle cry has always been for annihilation of the current system.

Whether that's good news for boxing fans, boxers, or the sport itself remains to be seen. But it is increasingly looking like we will see, once the Senate and House get this bill to the President's desk.

Related: Boxing Finally Mounts Defense of Ali Act

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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 2:23 PM.