Sen. John McCain Embraced the Role of a Boxing Reformer

I have long been an avid fan of boxing. Yet I share the growing dismay of many of the sport’s leaders about how the magic of boxing has been plundered and sullied. What should be a sport of intense but honorable competition has degenerated into a callous industry where too few rules and ethical boundaries protect the athletes and fans who sustain it. – John McCain introducing the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act to a U.S. Senate committee in 1999.

John McCain, who served six terms in the U.S. Senate representing Arizona and was the Republican nominee for President in 2008, died on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 25, succumbing to a particularly aggressive form of cancer called glioblastoma. A former Navy pilot who was a POW for a five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnam prison, McCain was 81.

Released by his captors in March of 1973, McCain won his first political race in 1981, earning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served one term before moving on to the Senate. During his 30-plus years on Capitol Hill he served on various committees, including the chairmanship of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Several of the bills that he introduced concerned boxing. The Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996, signed into law by Bill Clinton, made it mandatory for state athletic commissions to honor the medical and disciplinary suspensions imposed by other state commissions. However, promoters and managers tended to disregard it dictating, in McCain’s view, a broader and more stringent law. The do-over, actually an amendment to the Safety Act, was named the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. McCain said he chose the name because Ali was a long-time hero of his. The amendment, co-sponsored by Nevada Senator Richard Bryan, was approved by the Senate in April of 2000.

The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act was designed to free boxers from the stranglehold of unscrupulous promoters by barring promoters from also serving as managers and by imposing a limit on the length of time that a promoter can “own” a fighter before that fighter becomes a free agent.

McCain wasn’t done. In 2002, he introduced an amendment to establish a federal body inside the Department of Labor that would regulate boxing. At the top would be a boxing czar appointed by the President. Muhammad Ali testified in favor of the amendment. A formal statement supposedly written by him was read to the solons by Ali’s wife Lonnie.

This proposal died on the vine, much to the disappointment of McCain who set forth his position in a 2004 article written for the student-run Stanford Law and Policy Review. “Professional boxing,” wrote McCain, “has reached the precipice of irrelevance and federal uniform standards may be the only way to preserve the sport for the enjoyment of future generations.” McCain was also in the forefront of the battle to secure a posthumous federal pardon for Jack Johnson and lived to see this become a reality.

Last year McCain was awarded the “Liberty Medal” by the non-partisan National Constitution Center which cited him for his “lifetime of sacrifice and service.” The center awards only one medal each year. Previous winners include the Dalai Lama, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, and Muhammad Ali.

We’ll leave it to future generations to decide whether McCain’s reforms have had any significant effect on professional boxing, a sport that has always marched to its own drummer. And while no politician ever went wrong offering up a bill to reform boxing, there is no question that McCain was genuinely interested in improving conditions for boxers and in making the sport less of a “red light district.”

John McCain is survived by his second wife, the former Cindy Lou Hensley, seven children, and his 106-year-old mother. May he rest in peace.

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