Comparing the WEC and the IFL just goes to show you how important management and business sense is. The IFL roster has the talent. The problem is that Shamus (who is now quitting) is a comic book geek that thought it would be cute if you had teams with tacky logos and animal names. This Shamus guy clearly didn’t know MMA and the MMA scene. To be fair, in mainstream sports leagues you do have the animal names and logos. But for whatever reason, it comes off as super-cheesy and tacky with the IFL. Maybe it’s because the fight game is targetted to an older (teenager/young adult) demographic whereas mainstream team sports have a broad demographic? I don’t know.

The IFL has this tacky feeling to it that feels like the kickboxing stuff in the 80s, RollerJam, XFL and Chuck Norris’ WCL. I don’t know how to explain it. I still watch the IFL for the fights but the image side of it really hurts the product. Also 4 min rounds is too short. The IFL had an almost $17m deficit in 2007. I wonder how in the hell they are managing to burn that money. They held 13 events (too much) I think in 2007 so that would mean they are losing an average of over $1 mil per event.

The IFL has made some changes for the better but unfortunately I think the IFL is going to collapse within 2008. They have a number of talented prospects and veterans and they’ll either end up in the UFC/WEC, ProElite (which is on a decline but in a lot less trouble than the IFL), HDNet Fights (whom I feel has the most potential in America) or M-1 Global (whom recently signed Eddie Alvarez apparently. About damn time they added someone else other than Fedor to their roster!)

Here’s an interesting thought (well, I thought it was). The UFC will have done 5 events in the span between the last WEC show and this next one. Maybe only 4, I can’t remember if the TUF finale was the weekend before or after the last WEC event, but it’s close enough.

That’s a lot of MMA, I love it.

Manny Tapia Vs. Antonio Banuelos
Mark Hominick vs. Josh Grispi
Leonard Garcia vs. Hiroyuki Takaya

So already the card has 6 interesting fights.

I have said this before, but the WEC is everything the IFL should have been.

I wish that WEC would add women to the card.