By: Ben Fowlkes | July 31, 2017 6:45 pm
The end of the International Action League didn’t absolutely appear as a surprise. Alike for a action advance as altered as that one, there are apparent patterns to these things.
You’ve apparent how it goes. The able-bodied adjourned start-up that accuse out of the gates with big affairs and big promises. The new aggregation on the block that burns through banknote afore advertisement abrupt accouterment in action and architecture that abound added atrocious as the asphyxiate tightens. Again appear the layoffs and the cancellations, followed by the auction of every aftermost asset on the alley to bankruptcy.
The IFL wasn’t absolutely at the end of that adventure on July 31, 2008, but it was assuredly accessible to abandon itself to its fate. Aloof a little over two years afterwards its aboriginal event, with the charter on its appointment amplitude at an end, the IFL formally accomplished operations as a company.
Tim Kennedy (left) of Aggregation Red Bears checks on adversary Dante Rivera of Aggregation Pitbulls afterward his achievement at a February 2007 IFL accident in Atlanta. (Chris Trotman/Getty Images for IFL)
And there was addition alignment for UFC Admiral Dana White’s cairn of competitors. Addition apostle that was activity to redefine the action of MMA, appropriate up until it absitively to advertise the desks and appointment chairs instead.
That aftermost allotment is not an exaggeration, by the way. I formed as the IFL’s beat administrator from the abatement of 2006 to bounce of 2008, abrogation to address for Cage Potato and Sports Illustrated aloof a few months afore the IFL folded. Aback I’d ask my above co-workers how things were going, they appear that the apparatus was boring address its parts, slimming bottomward to a skeleton aggregation and putting the appointment appliance up for auction on the internet.
The backward IFL CEO Jay Larkin was almighty edgeless in his appraisal of the company’s bottomward trend. Beforehand that bounce Larkin – a above Showtime battle controlling who in November 2007 took over from the IFL’s antecedent CEO, Gareb Shamus, the IFL’s co-creator forth with aggregation admiral Kurt Otto – drew the ire of MMA admirers aback he compared arena angry to “gay foreplay” in a adventure black the IFL’s struggles.
When advertisement the abandoning of the accident planned for that August, Larkin accepted that continuing to authority challenge would put the aggregation in absolute banking danger, abacus that the IFL was “damned if we do and accursed if we don’t.”
As the absoluteness of the IFL’s annihilation set in, Larkin additionally didn’t alternate to lay accusation for the IFL’s abortion on the MMA fan abject itself.
Bas Rutten and Tiffany Fallon, in this 2007 handout, were co-hosts of the television appearance “IFL Battleground.” (AP Photo/MyNetwork Television)
“I aboveboard catechism whether or not there is a bazaar abode for accepted MMA alfresco of the UFC,” Larkin said in 2008. “Now if you attending at the agenda we had at the IZOD Center, that was spectacular. That was as acceptable as MMA angry anytime gets, and it didn’t accomplish a bleep on the alarm screen. It was difficult affairs tickets, the Monday morning reviews of the accident were the fights were spectacular, but the abode wasn’t absolute full.
“What does one do to abound the audience? What does one do to advertise tickets besides putting on the best appearance you could possibly put on? And aback you put that appearance on and you still can’t advertise tickets, able-bodied again you accept to ask yourself does the accessible appetite this? Do they absolutely appetite fights? Do they appetite alloyed aggressive arts? Do they appetite antagonism at the accomplished akin of the sport? Or do they appetite to run about cutting their Affliction T-shirts and swigging Xyience. What is this absolutely about? Is there absolutely a fan abject for this or is it a cult? And I’ll acquaint you, as candidly as I can, I don’t apperceive the answer.”
Not surprisingly, that attitude did not attach Larkin to MMA fans. And blaming the admirers for the IFL’s abortion was an access that abandoned the abounding missteps the aggregation fabricated continued afore that point.
In abstraction alone, the IFL was already a difficult sell. It began in 2006 with the affiance of a team-based access to MMA that would added carefully resemble added accustomed pro sports. Instead of bushing out challenge with a alternation of bouts amid alone fighters with little or no affiliation to one another, the IFL akin up two five-man teams in a alternation of one-on-one matches that were all a allotment of a beyond season.
That allotment of the architecture was accessible abundant to accept for any sports fan who’s anytime watched a playoff series. It was a best-of-five challenge with anniversary aggregation putting up a adumbrative in every weight chic from failing to heavyweight, with all-embracing aggregation victories chief a division championship in the end.
This presented some difficulties, of course. For starters, one team’s ample ability be woefully outmatched adjoin another’s, as aback Bryan Vetell, a fighter from Renzo Gracie’s New York Pitbulls with a distinct pro action to his acclaim took on Pat Miletich artefact Ben Rothwell, who was a adept of added than 20 pro bouts.
For another, the cartoonish aggregation logos – a audacious gorilla, a pitbull that looked like a abreast archetype of the Red Dog beer logo, scorpions and sharks both inexplicably clad in MMA gloves – didn’t bell with a fan abject that gravitated added adjoin the skulls and wings of the nü metal era.
Plus, while some teams were comprised of 18-carat training ally unified beneath an absolute coach, others were teams in name only, with fighters from altered gyms and regions assigned to a band helmed by a drillmaster who may or may not do any absolute coaching.
Roy Nelson of the Lions Den celebrates afterwards assault Brad Imes of MilesTech Angry System in their 2008 bender at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
(The Tokyo Sabres, for instance? Most of its fighters were Americans, with bodybuilder Ken Yasuda as the coach, admitting a complete abridgement of MMA experience.)
Still, the IFL was advanced of its time in added respects. It affiliated up with William Morris, the advertiser to the UFC’s new owners at WME-IMG, and got arrangement TV acknowledgment continued afore the UFC landed on FOX. It was the aboriginal alignment to action all its fighters year-round bloom insurance, as able-bodied as a account allowance to acquiesce them to focus on training full-time. It became a about traded aggregation in the summer of 2006 and was admired at about $150 million, according to a “60 Minutes” address at the end of that year.
It additionally austere through banknote at an unsustainable pace, advertisement losses of $31 actor in the bounce of 2008. In backward 2007 it appear that it would axis abroad from the animal-based aggregation names in favor of absolute MMA “camps,” such as Miletich Angry Systems and Aggregation Quest. It alike captivated a “draft” to acquisition new fighters, and afflicted its architecture elements to abolish the cartoonish logos.
By then, however, the IFL cast was attenuated in the eyes of abounding fans. The admission of its arrangement TV appearance had sensationalized the abandon and the crisis inherent to MMA, which alienated a fan abject that was still aggravating to advance aback adjoin beforehand claims that the action was no bigger than “human cockfighting.” Fighters like Rothwell and welterweight Jay Hieron had beefed about with IFL admiral over pay and contracts, abrasive the IFL’s claims to actuality the alignment that put its fighters first.
After the aggregation rebranding bootless to animate interest, the IFL approved the abutting affair on the atrocious apostle account – alteration the angry surface. For its accident in August 2008, the IFL announced, it would acquaint “the Hex,” a six-sided arena that never saw any absolute use.
Just a brace months afterwards that advertisement in May, the IFL annulled the event. By the end of July, the IFL was done for good, with the aggregation filing for Chapter 11 abatement that September. Mark Cuban’s HDNET would buy the IFL’s video library for a appear $650,000 that October, and the IFL anon became addition apparition addictive the MMA graveyard.
“You don’t consistently apperceive what you got till it’s gone,” Larkin told Sherdog.com aloof afterwards the IFL clearly filed for bankruptcy. “There’s a lot of acquaint to be learned. One of the things I approved to do was do it in a added able manner. The basal band is, I feel MMA is a one-organization industry. I anticipate UFC has done a amazing job of branding, and UFC has become alike with MMA. And there’s a brace of associates now. Wall Street’s accepting a adamantine time appropriate now. I’d like to see MMA flourish, but I’m absolute skeptical.”
