That is Half 3 of BoxingInsider.com’s collection on the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act. Half 1 examined what the invoice means for membership promoters and impartial boxing. Half 2 broke down what drug testing really prices at each stage of the game. This piece is about the place the fighters go when the home reveals disappear—and what’s ready for them once they get there.
There’s a time period in boxing that the majority followers have by no means heard. It’s referred to as win tourism. It refers back to the follow of American fighters touring to international locations like Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico to combat opponents who don’t have any enterprise being in a hoop—and coming house with padded data. It’s an open secret. And the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act is about to make it the default path for each younger fighter on the backside of the skilled ladder.
The numbers should not delicate. Thomas Hauser, the Corridor of Fame journalist, reported that based on BoxRec founder John Sheppard, from 2018 via 2020 there have been roughly a dozen fights per yr in Colombia involving an American boxer. By 2024, that quantity had exploded to 278. The American fighter received all 278. Sheppard coined the time period win tourism, and he’s blunt about what it represents: complicity at each stage of the game.
That’s the panorama earlier than H.R. 4624 passes. Now think about what occurs after.
The Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act cleared the Home Training and Workforce Committee by a vote of 30 to 4 and landed on the Union Calendar on February 25, 2026. It’s heading for a full Home vote with sturdy bipartisan assist. The invoice’s centerpiece is the creation of Unified Boxing Organizations—UBOs—entities that may deal with promotion, rankings, titles, and sanctioning all below one roof. It mandates minimal per-round funds. It requires licensed ringside physicians. It requires coaching amenities and rehabilitation entry for contracted fighters. It requires medical health insurance.
The invoice was offered as fighter safety. In actuality, it’s a compliance framework designed for billion-dollar operators and dropped on an ecosystem that runs on tight margins and native hustle.
Membership boxing in America—the four-round fights, the six-rounders, the small reveals in lodge ballrooms and music venues—already operates below state athletic commissions. These commissions already require licensed referees, ringside physicians, pre-fight medicals, post-fight medicals, and insurance coverage insurance policies. The system isn’t excellent, some commissions are a lot better than others, but it surely’s actual. It capabilities. Fighters are examined earlier than they step within the ring in NJ and NY and examined once more after. Suspensions are tracked throughout state traces. There are adults within the room.
The Revival Act doesn’t strengthen that system. It creates a parallel one constructed for corporate-scale operators whereas layering new mandates onto the prevailing one—mandates that don’t distinguish between a TKO manufacturing in a 20,000-seat area and a membership present in a 300-seat room. The prices of compliance don’t scale down. The paperwork doesn’t scale down. And when impartial promoters can’t take up the overhead, they cease placing on reveals.
After which there’s drug testing. The unique invoice didn’t embrace it. However throughout committee markup, Consultant Walberg’s substitute modification added Part 4(b), which amends the Skilled Boxing Security Act to require testing in opposition to the WADA prohibited substance record at each title bout and at random for all different matches. A separate provision in Part 24(e) requires testing of a minimum of 50 % of members on UBO playing cards particularly. That’s not a suggestion. That’s a federal mandate. A regular ten-panel urinalysis prices a fee $30 to $150. WADA-compliant testing—the sort required below this invoice—runs $20,000 to $30,000 per combat. As Half 2 of this collection specified by element, California’s whole annual drug testing price range is $175,000 for roughly 130 occasions. This invoice would burn via that in a handful of playing cards. Whether or not these prices land on commissions or promoters, the end result is similar: the small reveals go darkish.
When these reveals disappear, the fighters don’t disappear with them.
They get on a airplane. They fly to Barranquilla or Santo Domingo or Tijuana, the place an area operator places them on a card for money, the place there’s no fee, no drug testing, no post-fight MRI, and nobody asking whether or not the opponent has ever had a boxing lesson. They arrive house with a win and a file that appears reputable to anybody who doesn’t know higher.
And what’s ready for them on the opposite finish of that airplane ticket is worse than most individuals in Washington can think about.
John Sheppard runs BoxRec—the closest factor boxing has to an official record-keeper. He’s spent years publicly documenting what occurs within the jurisdictions that American fighters are already flying to, each on BoxRec and in interviews with boxing media. The tales that observe should not rumors from fitness center corners. They’re documented incidents from the group accountable for sustaining the integrity {of professional} boxing data worldwide.
In a single case, Sheppard despatched a BoxRec editor to look at a combat card at a venue {that a} fee had been submitting outcomes from. The constructing was locked. There have been no fights. No ring, no crowd, no fighters. However on Monday morning, the fee despatched occasion outcomes to BoxRec—with each “skilled loser” listed because the winner. All the card was fabricated.
At one other occasion, a BoxRec editor attended a card and counted six fights. The supervising fee submitted outcomes for seven—with corroborating images for every bout. The discrepancy? On the finish of the night time, two fighters entered the ring, had been sprayed with water, had their photograph taken, and left. No punches thrown. The combat was recorded.
An American boxer contacted BoxRec to report that he had been “defrauded” in Mexico. He had paid a promoter to safe a win. The opponent tanked for 4 rounds as agreed. However the judges gave the choice to the opponent anyway. The promoter then informed the fighter he may get the choice reviewed—for a further $400.
A Mexican fee submitted an occasion report that included a loss for “Jose Lopez.” There are greater than 100 Jose Lopezes in BoxRec’s database. Sheppard requested which one. The fee’s response: “We don’t know. However he misplaced. It doesn’t matter. Simply decide one.”
And a brand new commissioner, working her first occasion, requested the skilled commissioner coaching her the way to decide who received a combat. The reply she obtained: “The referee will increase the winner’s hand.” No one taught her about attracts.
That is the system American fighters are already utilizing to pad their data. That is the place the Revival Act pushes extra of them.
It’s not only a record-keeping downside. It’s a security disaster. WBC President Mauricio Sulaimán has warned publicly that when combat outcomes go unrecorded—which occurs routinely in unregulated jurisdictions—fighters who’ve been knocked out don’t carry the knockout on their official file. Meaning they are often scheduled to combat once more two or three weeks later with out a obligatory suspension. Sulaimán mentioned this has already occurred.
A 2024 research revealed within the journal Mind and Backbone put it in medical phrases: “An unknown variety of fatalities go undetected in unofficial bouts.” The researchers referred to as for “improved and systematic registration of boxing-related fatalities.” In different phrases, we don’t even understand how many individuals are dying in these fights as a result of no one is counting.
That is the half that ought to hassle each member of the Home. The unique Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000 was constructed on a precept of separation of powers. Promoters couldn’t be managers. Sanctioning our bodies couldn’t be promoters. The firewalls existed as a result of historical past proved what occurs when one entity controls the entire chain—fighters get exploited. The Revival Act tears down these firewalls and arms the framework to an organization that already controls MMA {and professional} wrestling. TKO—the mother or father firm of the UFC and WWE—lobbied for this laws. The UBO mannequin is their mannequin.
And it’s price noting who’s elevating alarms. The WBC opposes it. Unbiased promoters oppose it. Fighter advocates oppose it. The MMA Fighters Affiliation—representing the UFC’s personal athletes—circulated a petition urging opposition, calling the invoice an extension of the UFC’s mannequin reasonably than real fighter safety. Even USA Boxing—the nationwide governing physique for novice boxing and the amateur-to-pro pipeline—has withdrawn its assist. Thirty to 4 doesn’t recommend anybody is listening to the individuals who really work in boxing.
Senator Ted Cruz—who has spent his profession warning about laws that exports American jobs abroad—sat down with Dana White this week on his podcast to reward how thrilling the Revival Act is for boxing. TKO will certainly create some high-profile alternatives. However this invoice will export much more grassroots jobs—fighters, trainers, and small-show infrastructure—pushed in another country. We already know the sample: 278 fights in Colombia in 2024, each one received by an American. The Revival Act doesn’t cease that. It accelerates it by making it dearer to combat at house than to purchase a airplane ticket.
The basic downside is that Congress checked out a sport with a regulation hole and determined the reply was extra regulation solely the place regulation already exists. American membership boxing is regulated. Colombian gymnasiums should not. Dominican lodge convention rooms should not. Mexican venues the place commissions fabricate outcomes and spray water on fighters for pictures should not. The fighters who’re most susceptible—those simply beginning out, those with out connections, those who want ring time to develop—are those who shall be pushed into these environments when the home alternatives dry up.
Win tourism is already an epidemic. 278 fights in Colombia in a single yr, with a 100% American win fee. Fabricated combat playing cards submitted by commissions that don’t exist. Fighters knocked out in unregulated bouts with no file of the knockout and no suspension to guard them. An American fighter paying a promoter for a assured win and getting scammed by the judges. A fee that may’t let you know which fighter misplaced as a result of they don’t know and don’t care.
That’s not a pattern. That’s an business. And H.R. 4624 is about to pour gasoline on it.
Reagan had a well-known line: “Authorities shouldn’t be the answer to our downside; authorities is the issue.” In boxing, proper now, he’s proper. However he was additionally fallacious—as a result of there’s a model of presidency that works on this sport. I see it each time I placed on a present. That’s a narrative for the subsequent piece on this collection.
This invoice isn’t the reply. It’s being fast-tracked by a Congress that thinks it’s doing one thing good. That’s what makes it scary.
They’re calling it the Revival Act. From the grass roots, it’s additionally the Export Act. And the blokes who’ll pay for it are those no one in Washington has ever heard of.
H.R. 4624 is heading for a full Home vote. Contact your consultant earlier than it will get there. Inform them this invoice deserves severe debate earlier than it turns into regulation—not a rubber stamp.
Subsequent within the collection: Authorities in boxing—what it appears to be like like when it really works, and what this invoice will get fallacious about who must be working the game.
Larry Goldberg is the founding father of Boxing Insider Promotions and proprietor of BoxingInsider.com. BoxingInsider.com is an impartial boxing information platform and the house of Boxing Insider Promotions, which phases skilled boxing occasions in Atlantic Metropolis and New York Metropolis. We’re not protecting this laws from the surface. We’re one of many promoters it’s going to immediately have an effect on.
Learn the total collection:
Half 2: Drug Testing in Boxing: What It Really Prices
Half 3: The Muhammad Ali Revival Act Simply Made Win Tourism the Enterprise Mannequin for Unbiased Boxing
Half 4: The Muhammad Ali Revival Act Turns the ABC Into America’s De Facto Nationwide Boxing Fee
Half 5: Boxing Wants Reform. This New Ali Act Revival Invoice Wanted a Debate.
