House holds hearing on mixed martial arts

The Congressional Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade held a hearing on Thursday on mixed martial arts, with attention paid to doping, fighter compensation, and head trauma. The hearing was organized by Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), a former fighter who in May introduced a bill to expand the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000 to MMA and kickboxing. The bill seeks to establish an independent fighter ranking system, and allow the top fighters to compete against one another, regardless of league, among other goals.

The hearing reviewed testimony from several witnesses including the great UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture, UFC drug czar Jeff Novitzky, Treasurer of the Association of Boxing Commissions Lydia Robertson, and Neuropathologist Dr. Anne McKee.

Once more, we turn our attention to something Congress has not focused upon before, said House Subcommittee chair Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) in an opening statement. As the industry continues to evolve swiftly, now is the time to bring Congress up to speed on MMA, and understand if there is a role Congress should be playing in this multi-billion-dollar industry.

Couture made a detailed, heartfelt case for Federal intervention in the sport.

A machine is basically printing money for them,” said Couture, as transcribed by Alex Daugherty for mcclatchydc.com. “They don’t want to give up that structure and that power. Me, I was fortunate to be in that top percent. I made a great living as a fighter. The mid- and lower-tier fighters, those guys that aren’t in the top 5 percent … they struggle.

They can’t fight enough times in a year to make a decent living, especially with the restrictive contracts that are out there, relegated to fighting just for that one promotion. I’m more interested in changing the sport across every promotion for all the future athletes, so they don’t have to fight with the company over ancillary rights and some of the crap that I had to fight with the company over.

If you’re not a Ronda Rousey or a Conor McGregor, you’re getting the shaft. Everybody below that’s not in that top echelon is struggling. It’s not going to get better, it’s going to get worse. The only reason Conor’s getting a bigger, better piece is because, so far, he’s backed it up.

McGregor is taking a break until May, when he and long-time partner Dee Devlin expect their first child. But Notorious has been advocating for a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, and got licensed as a professional boxer in California.

Now, he’s covered under the Ali Act with that boxing license,” said Couture. “But I guarantee you his contract with the UFC says he’s not allowed to box, he’s not allowed to do grappling or wrestling – so how’s that gonna settle out?

Mullin and Novitzky went back and forth at one point.

We have the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which is the officially recognized anti-doping agency in the United States,” said Novitzky. “So that’s one of the beauties of our program. We don’t police ourselves, we have an independent authority.

Unfortunately, while Couture’s understanding of the sport is deep, the same cannot be said of all the participants, including the bill’s creator, Rep. Markwayne Mullin.

Then how did Brock Lesnar get a pass this past July to not have to test? asked the congressman of Novitzky.

That’s not accurate that he got a pass in terms of testing, said Novitzky.

Lesnar was tested, and failed, but the results came back after the fight had ended. When fighters leave the UFC and return they are required to undergo four months of testing to prevent just this sort of occurrence. However, Lesnar left the UFC before the new USADA rules were instituted, so was grandfathered out of the requirement, and was treated like any new fighter.

Those subtleties may have been lost on the congressman.

Yeah, I believe it is, I can submit that article for the record, replied Mullin, who, frankly speaking, does not appear to have a firm grasp of the sport he once competed in.

Conor McGregor won the featherweight title on December 12, 2015. He next was scheduled to fight for the lightweight title, but when then champion Rafael Dos Anjos pulled out, he ended up fighting Nate Diaz, at welterweight, twice. When he finally got a second shot at the lightweight belt vs. then champion Eddie Alvarez, exactly 11 months had passed since he had last fought at 135.

UFC president Dana White made it abundantly clear beforehand that McGregor had to choose one belt, and the fighter, however grudgingly, chose lightweight. Notorious showed no inclination to fight at 145 ever again, dismissed the #1 challenger at 155 as a pull-out artist, and appeared only marginally interested in challenging at 170. The contest he seems to want is in boxing. And he is taking off until May. At that point it would be 18 months without defending the featherweight belt, and he has given no indication he wants to ever.

Here is Mullin’s interpretation.

As we heard with McGregor, he’s never lost at 145 pounds, but yet because he made the UFC mad they dropped him out of the Top 10 in the ranking system, he said. They do that all the time.

When I had their (chief operating officer) in my office … I asked him about the ranking system in championship fights. I said, ‘How is No. 1 and No. 5 always fighting and you don’t see No. 1 and No. 2?’ He said, ‘Well, we put on the best fight that the fans want to see.’ I have no problem with that, that’s called promoting. But if you’re going to call it a championship belt then shouldn’t No. 1 and No. 2 be fighting themselves?

Although the Ali Act does not address the issue, the subject of head trauma also came up. Dr. Ann McKee, professor of neurology at Boston University, was a little unfortunately ill-informed.

In May, Bellator MMA fighter Jordan Parsons was struck and killed by a hit and run driver. The autopsy revealed the first diagnosis ofchronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE0 in an MMA fighter. Jordan’s tragic death was incorrectly and irresponsibly read into the record as a suicide.

CTE is a big problem for contact sports, and what we know today is very likely only the tip of the iceberg, said Dr. McKee. We found evidence of CTE in the only [sic] MMA fighter we examined, a 27-year-old who took his own life, and there is good reason to believe that a significant portion of other MMA fighters are at risk for CTE.

Mullin said that incoming House Commerce Committee chairman Greg Walden (R-Oregon) will allow the legislation to progress. However, the expansion of the Ali Act will not be voted on until the new Congress commences in January.

If the bill does comes out of the committee, it will be voted on in the house. If it passes the house, it will be voted on in the senate. If it passes in the senate, it will be sent to President Trump, who asked UFC president Dana White to speak at the Republican National Convention. The President can veto the bill, sending it back, where it will need a 2/3 majority vote in the house and senate to become law.

Further, the UFC has hired a lobbying firm to fight the Ali Act expansion.

Put simply, bill H.R.5365 faces a tough fight.

Couture offered a final remark about his experience on Capitol Hill.

I’d rather be punched in the face, he quipped.