“Professional boxing remains the only major sport in the United States that does not have a strong, centralized association, league or other regulatory body to establish and enforce uniform rules and practices,” McCain said in a Senate floor speech introducing the legislation. “Ineffective oversight of professional boxing will continue to result in scandals, controversies, unethical practices, a lack of trust in the integrity of judged outcomes and most tragic of all, unnecessary deaths in the sport.”

McCain said he would prefer the boxing industry regulate itself, but the workings of a “powerful few” who benefit from the current patchwork system left federal intervention as the only option.