Promoter Eddie Hearn has been speaking about this week’s senate hearing about the Ali Act overhaul in Washington this week.
The hugely powerful men behind Zuffa Boxing are pushing congress to make additions to the Ali Act with The Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act.
While some of the improvements concern important topics including minimum pay and medical insurance, Hearn believes the proposed changes are more concerned with “control” and that, regardless of any hearings and arguments, the most important decisions have already been made.
“Look, it’s designed to protect the fighters and I think TKO/Zuffa Boxing are coming in because they want control and they want to basically organize and control the revenue for the fights and not really give it fairly to the fighters,” Hearn told FightHub at the Jarrell Miler-Lenier Pero show in Florida. “That’s what I think. Under the Muhammad Ali Act, you have to actually show the fighters what the revenue is with every show. And if they did that, the fighters would be very disappointed, as they are in the UFC. Nico Ali Walsh [who spoke at the senate] made a great point, you have to understand these guys are saying, ‘Look, we’re doing it in UFC, this is the model we would use.’ Every fighter in the UFC is disappointed and unhappy with their pay. In fact, they’re getting paid awfully and it’s not fair what the UFC are doing to their fighters. So on what basis is that model going to work in boxing? The fighters at the moment are respected through that act and I don’t think they will be.”
Hearn has recently started working with UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall on a managerial basis, and he watched the senate hearing with interest.
“There were a lot of comments and arguments that I thought were incredibly flawed that weren’t really argued, but to me the decision’s already made,” Hearn added. “Ultimately, you’ve got Dana White [who was] in the White House tonight having a cuppa tea with Donald Trump. It’s a gimme. It’s a favor, so you’re never going to win. But that’s what you’re up against. They’re control freaks. And when you take the control away from them, they can’t operate in that world. But boxing’s very different. It’s not how they think it’s going to be because they operate in a world that they can control and manipulate everything they want and you just can’t do that in boxing.”
Hearn was later asked about the same subject by a group of reporters and he continued: “It’s obviously a done deal before they’ve even gone in. It’s all favors for the boys, that’s just how politics work. I thought there was a lot of flawed arguments, particularly from Nick Khan, and I thought there were some valid points from him and I thought Nico Ali Walsh spoke really well. I thought Oscar [De La Hoya] spoke well. I thought there was a lot of opportunities missed. Ultimately, you’re trying to create a UFC environment and I think the best thing that Nico Ali Walsh said was every UFC fighter is unhappy with their pay, but yet you’re trying to create that same system and that same environment.”
Speaking about what might happen next, Hearn predicted: “I think there’s going to be a big split now in boxing. And I think if you go with Zuffa, you’re out of the governing bodies. I think that’s really how it has to be… All those fighters want to win those belts. No fighter is interested in winning the Zuffa belt. I’m sure in time, maybe in five years, maybe that belt might mean something. I don’t think so. The reality is I think now is the time where we’ve got to say, ‘If you sign with Zuffa, you can’t win a world championship.’ I mean, you’ve seen Jai Opetaia lose his world title, the thing that he was most proud of, the thing that he wanted to unify and become undisputed, and now you’re seeing Richardson Hitchins sign and now he’s given up his title as well. So that’s fine. If you sign with Zuffa, you can’t have that legacy. You can’t have it both ways. And I think that’s how it should be. Because I think Zuffa should have the balls to say ‘Yeah.’ We know what they’re trying to do. Just come out and say it. ‘We’re not going to work with you guys.’ They’ve already said that, then they moaned and cried when the IBF didn’t sanction the fight with Jai Opetaia [against Brandon Glanton]. So, let’s just get it right, you’ve got to fight for two ways. You’ve got to fight for legacy, or you fight for this new system. For me, the legacy will always be the answer.”
Hearn understands that the current construct is not perfect, however.
“Everything has problems. Everything can be improved,” he said.
But he said that how things stand now were more than fair for US fighters with the current system, firewalls and protections in place, particularly since he knows well how the system works in the US.
“The reality is, that Act is designed to protect the fighter and they’re trying to unprotect the fighter by having complete control to do whatever they want,” Hearn went on. “As a Brit coming into this country and seeing that Act at work, I couldn’t believe it when I first came, because you have to tell the fighters how much revenue is in the night. And they [Zuffa] don’t want you to know how much revenue’s in the night. That should tell you everything you need to know, and no one really mentioned that by the way. But that is the key reason…. “They [the fighters] don’t know what Paramount are paying per show. You have a situation where that deal could be so big they could be getting $10m a night from Paramount and the guys fighting in the Apex, the total purses for the entire night, are a million dollars, and they’re getting $10m revenue just from the broadcaster. These are the things they’re trying to stop you from knowing. When I first came here it was, ‘Oh my God. There’s actually a piece of paper,’ ‘TV are paying this, gate [is] this, other revenue,’ and it’s like… That’s unbelievably fair. You can’t get any fairer than that. But they don’t want you to know that. They just want to control you.”
