Nico Ali Walsh, grandson of the tardy Muhammad Ali, announced Thursday that he has formed an alliance with several key members of the boxing community to preserve the current version of the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Reform Act.
The group – known as the Ali Act Preservation Alliance – was formed in response to TKO Group’s efforts to pass the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act. The bill recently cleared major landmarks after the House of Representatives passed it on a voice vote in March and now heads to the Senate.
“The Alliance exists for one purpose only: to protect the best interests of fighters who risk everything in the ring, fighting for a chance at a better life for themselves and their families,” reads a press release from The Alliance.
The alliance seeks to ensure there is no monopoly in boxing, considers the proposed law “anti-worker” and opposes the creation of Unified Boxing Organizations (UBO), “which has its own rankings, matchmaking and awards its own championship belts, while being a promoter controlling all aspects of the business.”
Zuffa Boxing would be a major beneficiary of the passage of the bill, which would allow the fledgling boxing promotion to operate in a similar fashion to the UFC with its own world titles, weight classes and rankings.
“The Ali Act Preservation Alliance believes it speaks on behalf of the stakeholders of boxing and all combat sports in calling on the United States Senate to reject the so-called ‘Boxing Rebirth Act’ and see it for what it is: a unsafe and unjust exception to the law that protects fighters, and named after boxing’s greatest hero, Muhammad Ali, who fought in sports and throughout society for justice and civil rights,” the alliance said in a statement.
The group includes 25-year-old Walsh, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman and retired mixed martial arts fighter Carlos Newton.
“If we can’t stop it, we have to at least educate people about what’s going on,” Walsh told ESPN on Friday. “They kept telling everyone that they are not changing a single word of the current Ali Act and that they are supplementing it. But if you add to something, you are actually changing it.
“If people at least know what their true intentions are, they will be able to fight back.”
Walsh, who serves as AAPA’s president and spokesman, said he plans to travel to Washington with De La Hoya in the coming weeks to speak on the Senate floor and make his case for why the Renaissance Act should not be passed.
The grandson of Muhammad Ali is an busy boxer (13-2-1, 5 KOs) with a bachelor’s degree in business and entrepreneurship from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and believes that the TKO Group’s goal is not to present itself as an alternative to boxers, but to monopolize the industry like the UFC does for mixed martial arts.
“People don’t understand what this bill is,” Walsh said. “They won’t say their real intention is to monopolize the sport, but if they control matchmaking, contracts, rankings and world titles, that will be the beginning of a monopoly. It won’t happen immediately, but in ten years everything could change.”
“It’s a bait-and-switch tactic. They say boxers have a choice, but ultimately they won’t have one, and we want to stop that.”