Shortly after announcing his intention to introduce a bill that would expand the powers of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act to the sport of MMA, Oklahoma congressman Markwayne Mullin found himself sitting in his office having a conversation with a UFC executive who insisted that there was no such thing as a UFC championship.

“He actually said that to me,” Mullin told MMAjunkie. “He said, ‘We don’t have them fight for a championship belt. We bestow an award on an individual for the best fighter that night.’ I said, ‘See, this is exactly why we need this.’”

The executive in this case was UFC COO Lawrence Epstein, who met with Mullin in April to argue against the Muhammad Ali Expansion Act that Mullin has since put forth with support from the bill’s co-sponsor, Democratic congressman Joseph Kennedy III of Massachusetts.

The bill currently waits in committee, where it was referred after Mullin introduced it in May. If passed, it would add MMA and kickboxing to the sports covered under the Ali Act. It would also force major changes upon promoters like the UFC, some of which might profoundly alter the way the UFC does business.

That, according to Mullin, is part of the goal. As a former fighter himself, the 38-year-old Republican lawmaker describes himself as passionate about the sport, while at the same time fearing for its future.

“The fighters today are phenomenal athletes, while we were more brawlers,” Mullin said. “It’s become a professional sport. But would I encourage my kids to try and make it? Would I encourage my kids to go into it? Is it a sustainable career? I mean, for the top one percent, is it even sustainable for them? And the answer is no. No it is not.”

As for whether the Ali Act will change that, and how, that remains a difficult question to answer. According to Erik Magraken, an attorney who writes about legal issues in combat sports on his site CombatSportsLaw.com, changes as a result of the bill could be far-reaching and dramatic.

“The Muhammad Ali Expansion Act will turn the current business model on its head for many promoters,” Magraken wrote in an email to MMAjunkie. “This will not be limited to the UFC, but also other professional MMA promoters such as Bellator MMA and WSOF, not to mention smaller regional promoters. Additionally this will impact other combat sports promoters such as GLORY and Lion Fight Promotions, Bellator Kickboxing and even professional grappling promoters.”

Some aspects of the bill would have little to no impact on most MMA fighters and promoters. The original Ali Act contains provisions, for example, requiring judges and referees to be sanctioned by state commissions, already standard practice in most MMA organizations.

But other elements would come as a major shock to the MMA world. For instance, the Ali Act requires promoters to disclose their contracts to athletic commissions. It also requires them to disclose to the fighter all the revenue promoters are contracted to receive from that fighter’s bout.

In a sport where fighters and their managers have often complained about a lack of financial transparency on the part of promoters like the UFC, freeing up the flow of that information could have a major impact.

The Ali Act also places limits on the terms of “coercive” contracts, prevents promoters from also acting as managers for the fighters they promote, and calls for the establishment of an independent body to rank fighters and award titles.

This last element seems particularly important to Mullin, who cited the UFC’s “manipulation” of its own fighter rankings as one of the problems the bill would address.

“The way it works right now, if you get a UFC contract, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it mentality,” Mullin said. “The UFC controls the rankings system. You control the rankings system, you control the fighters. Because the only way you’re going to fight at the top level is if you get ranked by them. This language specifically says that a third party will have the jurisdiction to have a true rankings system. Then if you’re fighting for a championship belt, you’ll know it’s because you deserve it, not because the guy above you wouldn’t sign a contract slanted toward the organization and not the fighter.”

But according to the UFC, which recently engaged to lobbyists to work against the Ali Expansion Act on Capitol Hill, here is where the bill drifts into dangerous territory.

In a statement emailed to MMAjunkie, UFC COO Epstein described this as a provision that “would empower the federal government to play matchmaker” while hindering the ability of individual states to regulate the sport themselves.

“We believed, and continue to believe, that regulation is pivotal to the legitimacy and continued growth of MMA by providing it with the respect and structure needed to make it part of the permanent sports landscape,” Epstein wrote as part of a longer statement. “As such, we don’t oppose thoughtful federal regulation if it’s going to improve the health and safety of MMA athletes and strengthen the sport. The Mullin bill does neither.”

According to Mullin, the UFC’s focus on fighter health and safety is a smokescreen. The Ali Act, both in this updated version and its original form, focuses primarily on the relationship between fighters and promoters, mostly relying on the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 to govern issues of health and safety.

The UFC wants to center the conversation on health and safety, Mullin said, in order to avoid substantial changes to its business model.

“This isn’t to attack the UFC,” Mullin said. “This isn’t to go after or bring down an organization that spent a lot of time and money and effort to build this sport that was fixing to die. I commend them for doing that. What this is about is protecting the fighters and making sure the sport is sustainable for the future.”

So far it has enthusiastic support from Rob Maysey, the Arizona real estate lawyer who has been involved in the push for an MMA fighters association for at least a decade. On Monday Maysey sent out a letter signed by dozens of current and former fighters, including former UFC champions like Pat Miletich and Randy Couture, expressing “unwavering support” for the Ali Act.

According to Maysey, the reason critics of the Ali Act see it as something that applies better to boxing than it does to MMA is because of existing differences in how the two sports operate – some of the exact differences that the Ali Act would seek to address, he said.

“The difference between MMA and boxing is that one is operated as a sport, and that’s boxing,” Maysey told MMAjunkie. “The other is operated just like (World Wrestling Entertainment). The only distinction is, the bout results aren’t predetermined. That’s it. It’s still the same business model.”

The provision establishing an independent rankings body is especially important to reforming MMA, Maysey said, in part because of the way the UFC has used its own rankings system in the past. He pointed to instances involving UFC fighters Nate Diaz and Mark Munoz, both of whom were dropped from the UFC rankings during contract disputes.

With an independent rankings system, Maysey said, the ranking a fighter earns would stay with that fighter, regardless of which promoter he signs with or how that promoter feels about him from one week to the next.

“The Ali Act doesn’t create protection,” Maysey said. “Let’s not kid ourselves; nothing will. But what it does do, without question, is it returns some leverage to the fighters. As of right now, the promoter controls things almost entirely. If I can control who you fight, if you fight, and whether you ascend the ranks or not, you’ll sign whatever I tell you to. You have to. If you don’t sign, I just don’t promote you.”

But since becoming law in 2000, the Ali Act hasn’t exactly been a cure-all for boxing. Fighters in that sport still find themselves complaining about being stuck in long-term contracts. Many have expressed dissatisfaction with the rankings system, and several have complained about a lack of enforcement, particularly when it comes to financial disclosures, which some boxers have argued are incomplete and too reliant on self-reporting on the part of the promoter.

A significant difference is that, in boxing, fighters have a framework for legal action. Since the Ali Act at least sets forth a clear series of rules and expectations, fighters can bring the matter to court – and several have – when they feel those rules have been violated.

But just as in the few MMA contract disputes that have resulted in legal action, boxers are often reluctant to spend the primes of their careers awaiting a legal resolution. Time is often on a promoter’s side once the matter reaches the courts.

Still, according to Mullin, at least the Ali Act gives fighters an outline for what constitutes exploitative, coercive and illegal action on the part of a promoter. It gives them the grounds to bring the lawsuit in the first place. Mullin also hopes it might force the UFC’s hand on certain issues, such as what he sees as the misclassification of UFC fighters as independent contractors rather than employees.

Most of all, Mullin said, it will grant some measure of protection for a group of fighters who currently enjoys very little, which is why he suspects the UFC has “a whole bunch of (lobbyists)” in Washington D.C. to combat it.

“They don’t want to change it because it’s perfect for them right now,” Mullin said. “But is it perfect for the fighters? And I realize there’s not going to be any one solution that’s perfect for everybody, but can we improve where we’re at today? I think we can.”