Adam Minter: Mike Tyson and Jake Paul’s fight should have been illegal

Last week’s heavyweight faceoff between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was hard to watch – and not just because of Netflix’s technical issues. The 58-year-old Tyson looked his age, slow and unsuited to be in the ring, while Paul, the 27-year-old social media star, admitted to pulling his punches: “I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t want to hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt.”

Fans and bettors expecting a serious athletic competition had been warned. In advance of the fight, seven states refused to allow betting on it. Among other problems, they determined that the unusual rules that made the fight less dangerous, such as shorter 2-minute rounds, meant that the matchup wasn’t suitable for wagering. Texas, which licensed the fight, and 31 other states disagreed. But they were wrong: Paul treated it like an exhibition, to the detriment of anyone who wagered or watched.

Spectators – many of whom feel bamboozled – looking for somewhere to place blame should start with the fact that the sport has long been regulated state by state. To prevent a similar debacle in the future, boxing needs a national boxing commission that can enforce uniform rules and practices.

Among major American sports, boxing is unique for its decentralized structure. There’s no annual schedule, season, commissioner or mandatory rule-making body.

In part, this situation is a consequence of boxing’s shady reputation. In the early 20th century, when other sports, such as baseball, were organized into professional associations, several states were busy banning boxing for its violence and the “unsavory activities” connected to it (such as illegal gambling and fixed matches).

New York tried a different approach and passed the nation’s first boxing law in 1920. The provisions included requiring a physician at every fight and establishing a state boxing commission (the New York State Athletic Commission), which mandated that everyone associated with a bout – from the boxer to the promoter to the spit bucket carrier – be licensed. Other states set up commissions of their own, and that’s essentially how boxing has been regulated in the U.S. for the last century.

It’s better than nothing, but it also creates problems all its own. The existence of multiple regulators, combined with the inherently subjective art of judging a boxing match, makes it relatively easy for unscrupulous fighters, promoters and organized crime to engage in bribery and match-fixing. Meanwhile, as recently as the 1990s, fighters barred by a state for health or other reasons simply looked to others for their licenses.

So, in 1996, Congress enacted federal boxing legislation, and in 2000, lawmakers reformed some of it with what’s known as the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. The law was designed to enhance and assist the state-based regulatory framework and commissions rather than replace them. Among other changes, the two acts mandated minimum health and safety standards, mutual recognition of medical suspensions by states, minimum contract provisions and the creation of a uniform licensing and registration system. It was a genuine advance in boxing regulation at the time, but with a crucial flaw: Nobody was designated to enforce compliance.

Predictably, both the spirit and the letter of the law have been ignored for years. Particularly troubling are recent instances of older fighters seeking and receiving licenses for high-profile fights against younger ones after rules are adjusted to make the bouts “safer.” For example, in 2021, 58-year-old Evander Holyfield agreed to fight 44-year-old Vitor Belfort in California – on a week’s notice. California denied Holyfield a license, so he and the promoter sought and received one in less stringent Florida. California had a point: Holyfield didn’t last the first round in a fight that many commentators believed shouldn’t have happened at all.

Arguably, Tyson had even less business fighting at age 58. In May, he suffered a bleeding ulcer and lost 26 pounds. Fortunately for everyone profiting from his risk, the fight was sanctioned in Texas, a state known to have a more lenient athletic commission. But the fact that seven states wouldn’t sanction betting on it speaks to the lack of a unified opinion on whether an aging heavyweight should be fighting at all.

There are no straightforward means to prevent this kind of fight from happening again. But the establishment of a national boxing commission, empowered to enforce uniform practices, is the first step. It’s not a new idea. Beginning in the early 2000s, the late Senators John McCain and Harry Reid, both former boxers, repeatedly offered up legislation that would have created one and brought order, uniformity and a sense of safety to the sport. The bill never passed.

In the wake of the Tyson-Paul mess, Congress should get back in the ring and give it another try. The federal government certainly has more pressing issues to address in the coming months and years. But that’s never stopped it from meddling in sports in the past, and it won’t in the future.

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports.