Would the Ali act be good for MMA?
July 4, 2008 – 11:36 am by fightlinkerThere’s been a lot of talk about the Ali Act and how it should be applied to MMA. I’m not feeling verbose enough at the moment (honestly, I’ve been suffering from brain fart all week because I’m balls deep in web development on Fightlinker V5), but fortunately Brent Brookhouse breaks down why MMA doesn’t need the Ali act, and furthermore why it would be a bad thing. Here’s a couple of quotes from his article:
You can not force organizations to allow for cross-promotional fights, so instead you’re going to have fighters basically “Fedoring” their way through their career. One fight here, one fight there and the lack of being tied to a promotion doesn’t push for a fighter to fight the best competition. Look at the way Fedor’s career was when he was tied to PRIDE and then compare it to once he became a “free agent” doing single fight deals here and there. Tell me which you think is better for the landscape of MMA.
In boxing there is a level of corruption with the ranking organizations where promoters routinely get their (unworthy) fighters ranked through underhanded means to get a title fight. Why? Because title fights mean more money in boxing. Plus you get into the sanctioning fee aspect of things with the boxing organizations. Has the act done anything to address these ranking procedures? Not a single thing honestly. In MMA the belts are organizationally dependent. It does no good for the UFC to put someone unworthy in a title fight.
There’s gonna be a few legal tests over the next year or two where people try to apply the Ali Act to MMA … Mark Cuban has already said he thinks the Ali act covers MMA, and I bet he’ll be pushing that angle during the Randy Couture trial. But it’s funny … the Ali act was supposed to help boxers and the sport of boxing, but as far as I can tell it just fucked things up worse. Should something be done to make sure fighters aren’t being exploited by promoters? Sure. But is the Ali act the answer? Fuck no.
