my career as what most people consider the number two heavyweight in the world. i wanted to fight the number one heavyweight in the world, how do you be considered the best fighter in your sport. i was able to see that happen and pursued that fight myself outside of that contract and was prevented and in junctions were filed to keep me from making that fight happen. at some point i had to recognize i was in my 40s and the clock was ticking and went back and continued the rest of my career, but never got the chance to be considered the number one fighter in the world based on the outcome of that fight. there is a lot of -- that conflict of interest gives the promoter a ton of power to manipulate the fighters and rankings to get, for them it's just business. they're trying to get the most pay-per-view sold and people to buy tickets, they'll do whatever they need to do to manipulate that structure and titles to do

that. >> you talk about the doping, anti-doping program, thank you so much, when i was fighting the -- it was very rare that anyone got tested. how long has -- how long has they implemented these rules with the doping. >> that went into effect last july. >> is your mike on. >> it went into effect last july 1st, 2015. >> you are being real strong on that, you are not letting anything pass? you are making people make sure they test? >> actually, we have the united states anti-doping agency, which is the officially recognized anti-doping agency of the united states for olympic and paralympic sports, so that is one of the becauauties of our program. we don't police ourself. we have independent authority -- >> tell me, how did brock lesner

get a pass just this past july to not have to test? before a fight. he was waived the four month waiver, when you come out of retirement, you are supposed to test for four months before you are able to come out of retirement, take a fight, however, he was waived. he didn't have to. >> that's not accurate that he had a pass in terms of testing. >> yeah, i believe it is. and i can submit the article for record if you don't mind chairman. >> i would be happy to clarify what the situation was. >> okay. and maybe we can do that because i'm running out of time. before i run out of time, mr. chairman, i have a copy of the standard mma fighter and promotional contact that i would like to enter, just to make sure that the body understands what type of contract our fighters are currently against and how three -- being a promoter, being the contract holder and being the person who controls the ranking, is a direct conflict of

interest for the fighters. >> without objection, so ordered. >> i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. chair recognizes woman from illinois. five minutes, please. >> thank you. i want to follow up on head injuries, and of course, you know, they're inherent in mixed martial arts. we have heard all the dangers of concussions, i wanted to underscore the threats posed by repetitive hits to the heads known as sub con cusssive hits observe show know symptoms. my understanding is that these hits can also be quite dangerous. as has been discussed. dr. mckee, can you tell us what the evidence shows thus far in terms of the effect of the hits on the brain and have some subcon cusssive hits in the absence of a concussion diagnose

been linked? >> absolutely. sub con "s or just exposure to repetitive impacts that is usually measured in exposure years to the sport, the length of a playing career of the football player or hockey player, that has been significantly associated with long-term cognitive impairment, april pa thee and depression, not cte, because those are living individuals. we've seen it in our brain autopsy series where the longer a football player plays, the higher the risk for cte. we know in high school athletes, if you follow them for a single season in football, hockey and soccer, in the absence of a con kks, you will see mri evidence of brain diagnose at the end of that season, not related to concussion because none of them had a concussion, that's the sub injury stained by those amateur high school athletes in a single season showing up as brain

damage on mri and also some neuro psych exams. >> you said because on the players were living, that it's hard to find out if they have cte. so you are saying that -- what is the status right now of being able to diagnose cte in living people? >> well, there is a tremendous interest in that. obviously that is one of the stumbling blocks for really understanding how common the disease is. there is a tremendous interest, many academic centers, mount sinai, boston, mass general, ucla, many centers are looking at diagnosing cte using what they call a way to image in the brain just with an injection. and that is looking very promising. there have been some case reports reported and we're looking for the big series of being able to confidently say this is cte in living individuals. there has been a lot of advance in blood bio markers looking at

things like ratio of tow to tow in the blood and plasma. so we're really on the verge, i think in the next two to five years, we're going to nail this down. there's been tremendous explosive advances just recently. >> i would suggest that members of congress, who are really interested in these kinds of sports, and especially because of youth sports and the exposure of kids who see these athletes as role models that we really push for that kind of research so that we could make sure that we know more before someone dies. >> absolutely. and i think we also need long term prospective studies of thousand of amateur athletes. high school athletes following them so we can learn what those subtle symptoms are in the very beginnings of this disease so we know when to intervene to maybe you know, develop some therapies

that would make it less likely that they would develop cte. right now we're operating in the dark. we don't have any diagnosis except after death. there is a huge need to understand the effects of sports trauma. we know it's important, we don't want our kids to stop playing sports. we have to understand the risks and that will require funding for some of these long-term projects. >> we've heard that the structure of the mma system does not give fighters sufficient bargaining power with regard to their contracts. i'm concerned about the effect that has on the health and safety of fighters. if a fighter is hurt, does he have pressure to fight again instead of waiting to heal because he needs to fight to get paid? we had talked that injuries can occur in the lead up to the fight, but there's no compensation, there is no health insurance, there is no nothing

until you actually fight. so are they pressured into the fight? >> well, there is certainly some pressure involved in that. you are not going to get paid for all the training and everything you did leading up to fight night. so if you were injured or any of those things in the course of that training, you know, obviously if you are unable to compete, you've done all that for nothing. you are not going to get paid. so that certainly -- i don't know a single fight that i didn't walk into that i didn't have some nagging injuries, whether it be a sprained thumb from sparring or sore ankle or whatever, but certainly something like a knock out or something like that is a rare occasion in fighting. that's why we have great teams, guys we trust that we train with and we train, very, very hard. it's still a contact sport. but that's an important piece of of puzzle. i think there is some pressure there. you want to get to fight night and you will do whatever you need to do to get out there on

your opportunity and show what you trained to do. i think we fall under the same guidelines as boxing, you know, ct scans and blood tests and all the medical procedures to ensure that we're healthy going into that fight are taking place. we're getting the physicals and all those things like boxers and other combative sports athletes. if you get knocked out in a fight or are injured in a fight the first place you go is to the hospital. you are getting a scan to be sure there is nothing wrong going in there -- that stem from that competition. i think -- there is mandatory suspensions, those things are regular practice. if you get knocked down or knocked out, you are going to get a 90 day suspension right off the top. depending on the outcome of that ct scan from that night, they'll determine if that needs to be a little longer. if it needs to be extended and give you more time to heal up. before you even spar again let alone compete again. there are safety procedures in

place that are implemented and regulated by the athletic commissions that put on combative sports across the country. do we need -- >> but not in mma you are say g saying? >> those same things happen in mma, the difference is if i was floyd mayweather, he can fight only one time a year. he is only in training camp for that -- to fight for one year. he may not have to fight another year or two until he wants to, in mixed martial arts i don't have that luxury if i want to make a decent living in the sport i love. >> thank you, i yield back. >> thank you. chair recognizes the gentleman from mr. massachusetts. >> thank you, i want to thank you for having this hearing along with the other members. thank the witnesses for being here, particularly dr. mckee and all the work you do back home at boston university. thank you, thank you for being here. and i know he's been recognized by a couple other colleagues here so far, but we wouldn't be

here if not for the efforts of mr. mullin and i know his pay shun for this stems from his experience with it, so i want to thank my colleague from oklahoma for his leadership on this. mma promo tors have been criticized for imposing restrictive contracts and not allowing fighters the ability to negotiate terms of those contracts. start with you, can you expand on the issue, i know some of this has been touched on, you touched upon it a bit, why don't fighters have more bargaining power when they entered contracts with promo tors? >> there is no transparency from the promoter and what is actually made off the particular bout that you are in so then you have no way to judge what your true value is in that particular fight. and they control the rankings and who get is the shots at the titles. >> talk to me a little about that. what value who an independent ranking system have for and you how would that help -- >> independent ranking structure

would create an open market, where promo tors across the board, from whatever promotion, could then bid on making that independent rank in those top fights for those best athletes happen. regardless, it would eliminate the exclusivity of the contracts. right now they're forcing athletes to sign a contract that is exclusive to that promotion. what if wimbledon forces all the players to sign an exclusive players to compete for that title? that's in essence what they do right now. the u.s. open, australian open, they would dwindle and go away, they would not have access to those top athletes forced to sign that contract. >> focusing on the ranking system there, can you also talk to me a little bit, i heard a little about this yesterday, the typical payment structure for mma fighters, you touched on this a little bit. >> the payment structure? >> yeah. >> right now, it is something that your manager and you

negotiate with a promoter to get. the top 5% of the athletes in our sport make a pretty decent living. is it compared floyd mayweather not even close. >> how about 95%. >> 95% are struggling to make a living. >> what is struggle zblg the lower tier is 5,000 to show up and five, $5,000 if they win that fight. how many times do you have to fight in a year when a training process takes ten to 12 weeks to make a decent living. >> how many fights does a typical mma fighter go through? >> in a given year? >> to do that in a way that is safe for you. >> it takes me 10 to 12 weeks to prepare for one fight. if i fought three or four times, that's 48 weeks i'm in training, preparing in a 52 week year. so there are some fighters that

are more active than that and fight more than that, but that is a pretty good indication. >> how talk to me about endorsements, how does that work. >> the endorsement structure has changed with that particular promotion, the ufc. we used to be able to go out and develop relationships and i had people that have sponsored me since i first started fighting that grew with me through the exposure they got from my success as a fighter. much of that went away when -- with the ufc and fighters under contract with the ufc when they forced the fighters under contract for them to wear uniforms made by re book. they signed a deal for $70 million. >> that's the ufc? >> now allow all athletes to wear that uniform and no longer are they able to go out and garner their own sponsors in the various niche sporters of the sport. >> that would be supplemental income you had on top of the 5

and 5? >> many of those lower tier fighters could make as much from going out and garnering sponsor hip they're going to get in that particular fight as the fight purse. that went away for them. >> i have 30 seconds left. i want to build off on what you touched on. my understanding is for injuries suffered during a fight that that is covered from the health care that is provided for the league, if you will. what about injuries suffered during training? what happens there, how does that work, i would imagine that as you said, you often, if you are sparring for 10 to 12 weeks per fight, imagine that's physical. >> obviously if you are injured during the course of the night, the insurance rider for that fight for that competition covers whatever happens. through my dealings with the ufc, because i have had several contract disputes over ancillary rights with the company, out of that one of my complaints was what about the guys that get

injured in the course of training getting ready for a fight. now they can't get paid because they kounts make it to the fight, now they're responsible because of lack of insurance, to take care of whatever that injury was. the ufc is the only promotion that does that, they implemented an accidental insurance policy, if there is an accident -- you you are sick and have the flu you are on your own. if there is an accident in training, it's not a great policy, at least it's better than none. >> what is an accident, like you break my rib. >> something like that. it is a contact sport, sometimes those types of things happen, you get cut, sometimes you get cut. >> does that cover -- i need stitches who is going to pay for those stitches. >> i don't head butt in my daily business here, i try not to anyway. so -- >> as a sport on the whole, that is the only accident policy that is in place, fighters on the whole across the board are on their own.

>> sounds like a strong endorsement for obama chacare. mr. chair, thank you very much. >> the chair would recognize mr. rush for five minutes for questions, please. >> >> i want to thank you, mr. chairman, and i want to thank all the witnesses who are before us today. i want to limit my questions to miss robinson, dr. robinson or miss robinson, rather. you are the treasurer of the association of boxing commission. tell me a little bit about the boxing commission, i want to know what is that. >> those are the regulatory bodies spread across the nation. almost always a state agency, my personal state is housed under the arkansas department of

health. some are under commerce, some are under licensing and regulation. and each state has created a commission so that they can have a department that enforces the muhammad ali professional boxing act, that includes try balance government as well. not every try balance government promotes mma or boxing, but if they do, there is a real push for them to be part of our train sim pose yums, our officials training. >> so in terms of governance, do they have really teeth and power in terms of governance, do they really call the shots? >> i can't speak for every state. but yes. the ones that i'm familiar with, california has an excellent program, and they control every item of it.

in my home state of arkansas, it is not -- no matter what violation, the way the law is written in arkansas, nothing that a licensee does is a felony. but they are very fineable misdemeanors. so yes they have a hammer, to the best of my knowledge, all of them have a hammer that they can require enforcement of the minimum standard rules. >> i was a proponent and worked on the muhammad ali act and i certainly am supportive of it and supportive of expanding this. in your testimony, you mention mma fighter exploitation. i think we heard some testimony today that would bring attention to fighter exploitation. is that a pervasive problem now in the industry?

>> i think that if you talked to the participants, the answer is most definitely. i think that if you speak to various other components, they would say not so much. it's really a question, whatever legislation is passed, will be endorsed on a local level for a small promoter, just as it would be endorsed all the way up the chain to whatever major promotion there is. so exploitation, in my state of arkansas, we have never had the benefit of one of the major mma shows. so i have never actually held a contract in my hand. i would like to be able to speak first person on that. so i really can't address that. the fighters that i hear from, they do talk about exploitation. >> does anybody else on the panel have more of a direct

experience with exploitation that you want to highlight here before this committee? go ahead. well, moving on, my time is running out. this congress -- 800 pound or 10,000 pound elephant, how can we help you, what do you suggest? what are you thinking? how can we continue? >> the association of boxing commissions combative sports welcomes the idea of having more authority or aiding in the enforcement of proper regulations. we already have passed minimum standard rules for mma.

we have training, we're there. we just don't have any teeth to do any other kind of endorsement. in boxing, as i think representative denham alluded to, in boxing, when it comes down to making the contract, the abc actually recognizes the sanctioning bodies, they have to make application, that has to be published. the fighters know what the standards are. and we don't have those kind of teeth in the mma industry. so we even expanded our name this year so that we could make sure everyone knows we are here for all combative sports. so it's the association of boxing commissions and combative sports. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you.

chair does wish to recognize that a true sense of harmony in the season i allowed every other season to go first. i will recognize myself, five minutes for questions. first, it's an unrelated question, but you are a graduate of arkansas tech is that correct? >> i am. >> my wife graduated from arkansas tech. >> go wonder boys. >> there you go. let me just ask you and mr. novitzky, dr. mckee provided us in her testimony four items and i would just like to go through those individually and have both of you respond to whether or not these are something that could possibly happen with whatever regulation occurs through ufc and through the national or the commissioners. don't allow children and young adults to participate in full

contact with head strikes. is that something that ufc could live with? >> absolutely we would be in favor and are in favor of that. >> his robertson? >> excuse me, generally the association of boxing commissions has taken a position against youth -- manipulating joints is also very dangerous and we also are concerned right now about the cultism of weight loss that has been proven to contribute to the head injuries. >> we may get into that a little more with the trickle down effect of role models. the second item was to educate fighters so they learn the greatest opportunity to limit exposure and not allow head strikes in training and sparring exercises. >> absolutely. i think we're seeing a lot more of that in training techniques and definitely with our ufc fighters. that's one of the things i talked about in my hoping statement with the under construction center where the idea is we would bring in

athletes free of charge to come in and learn training techniques and be educated in areas about avoiding sub gyms not only in the united states but throughout the world and educate and allow fighters to train in a much safer level. >> ms. robertson, from the commissioner's standpoint? >> to the best of my knowledge very few states in america have the resources to foray into regulation of boxing or mma gyms. i know in my home state that is out of the purview of the law. >> let me interrupt for a second because dr. mckee, i don't think he was asking for regulation, just educating fighters to learn the greatest opportunities to limit exposure to not allow head strikes. that seems straightforward. would the commissioners be in favor of that? >> yes. the abc would be in favor of that.

>> the third is to limit the number of head strikes in the match. mr. novitzky, is that done now or is that possible? >> yeah, if you -- we have some of the best referees in the world in mma which you know their job within the octagon is to look out for the fighters. >> what's the magic number? >> i don't know if there's a magic number. >> and now mr. couture spoke about an income-limiting event but in general ufc would be okay with that? >> mr. couture also spoke about mandatory medical suspensions and that's something that the mma has, i think, better than any other sport. somebody who's concussed in a match can be up to six months mandatory medical suspension

where they can't have any contact for that period of time. so depending on the damage a fighter takes -- >> let me interrupt you because i'll run out of time and i hate to cut myself off. dr. mckee, you said this is not related to concussion, it's a repetitive small volume injury that are small percussive injuries that occur, is that correct? >> i did but i didn't want to minimize the effect of concussion as a brain injury as well so i do think they should be removed from the sport if they have a concussion and not allowed to return until they're fully recovered. i'm just trying to eliminate the smaller asystematic hits we know accumulate over time. >> do you have a quantitative number for us on the number of head strikes that should be allowed with any given match or year or career? >> no. i appreciate all of your answers on that. my understanding -- and it's fairly rudimentary, but my

understanding that the specific equipment required of the athlete is fairly minimal, is that correct, mr. couture? >> the equipment requirement at the professional level is a cup and gloves. obviously the gloves are forced to allow grip and grappling but i don't think those are really the issue. >> yeah, but so there's no helmet involved in this? >> well, we wear head gear -- >> you do? >> in training. not in competition. it's a professional sport like boxing and the version of amateur boxing versus professional boxing, amateur boxers wear head gear when they compete, professionals do not. same thing is true in our sport. >> that's interesting. dr. mckee, do you have an opinion as to whether or not that could make a difference? >> improvements can always be made with head gear. it won't eliminate the problem

but we can mitigate it or reduce the injury with head gear. >> okay. my time has run out and i want to be respectful of everyone else's time. mr. robertson, i want to ask you on the whole notion of the independent sanctioning, is that something that the commissioners have looked at that the person who promotes the boxers shouldn't be the one who's -- not the boxer but the athlete should not be the one who's then controlling the endorsements and number of matches and whether or not they're on a card? >> that was set forth in the muhammad ali act. and it did not require input from me is it something we favor? i believe -- personally, i'm not speaking for the association, i believe the muhammad ali act did enhance anti-exploitation of their contracts, but it also greatly reduced the number of events. >> which gets to the difficulty that mr. couture talked about, the difficulty in earning a

living when your number of events are restricted. >> yes, sir. >> but then the limitation on your endorsements, that's also a significant impediment to income, is that correct? >> some of that goes hand in hand with the power and basic monopoly that particular promotion has in the sport. because they're allowed to set their own rankings and create their own title which is isn't done in boxing and which is governed by the muhammad ali act which is why we're seeking to get the act expanded to include mixed martial artists and combative sports athletes from other sports. >> and i acknowledge this is not a legislative hearing, this is an informational exercise but mr. mullin's language is language that is favorable to what you seek? >> yes, sir. >> does anyone have a different opinion, in language in mr. mullin's bill would be detrimental to the sport or the athlete?

>> i have a concern about the open ranking system that involves other promotions as it relates to health and safety in that if a ufc fighter who is under the most stringent comprehensive robust anti-doping program in professional sports in the world is forced to fight a fighter from another promotion that may not have any out-of-competition anti-doping program, that's clearly a health and safety risk to our fighter. >> and a competitive disadvantage. >> correct. >> so recognized. which you alluded to in one of your statements. people who do use performance-enhancing drugs do so because they see it as a defensive posture because, doggone it, everybody else is doing it and if i don't i will get hurt. >> absolutely. >> i want to thank everybody. seeing there are no other members wishing to ask questions, i want to thank our panel. it has been an illuminating discussion this morning. before we conclude i would like to include the following documents to be submitted for the record by unanimous

consent -- a fighter contract submitted by mr. mullin, an article explaining the contract, a letter from the abc in pursuant to committee rules, i remind members that they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the record. i ask the witnesses to submit their responses to those questions within ten business days upon receipt of the question and without objection subcommittee is adjourned. thank you all.

[ indistinct conversation ] [ indistinct conversation ] up next, michigan

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