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IFL 3/17 Los Angeles
By Zach Arnold | March 17, 2007

Tonight, the ‘surprise announcement‘ by Bas Rutten is that he is stepping down as coach of the Anacondas. Shawn Tompkins will take over coaching duties.
Topics: All Topics, IFL, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Came back from the show, it was good…production is NOTHING compared to PRIDE but I dont think theyb have the capability to do it. Funny thing is they only used HALF of the Forum venue they were at so Im wondering how they will make money off of that. The seats were nearly full (definitly not a sell out). Fights were good for the most part. Lots of fighters were there including Barnett, Royce Gracie, Rampage, Kendall Groves, BJ Penn, Henderson and even Big John.
Josh – Todd Martin said the attendance was 3,500. Isn’t that what the WFA drew for their event? Any similarities or differences between the two crowds?
I often wonder why some people decide to become fight promoters. If your event is not keeping me entertained and on the action, you should decide to promote something else. Your sound, presentation, performer technique, playbill book, and fan base were beyond any kind of thing I have ever seen.
I sat next to a jiu-jitsu class that came to see a guy ifrom their gym fight. I asked them if it was taught in jiu-jitsu that you should take direct punches to the face and the student replied “yes.”
Behind me sat a screaming banshee of a dooshbag who kept yelling “ride em hard!” and “do it to him, do it to him!” He also yelled “that’s his power move! watch him go! That’s his power move!”
Finally another onlooker said “dude, why don’t you go down there and make out with him.”
Kurt Otto and Gareb Shamus were very visible, but it seemed like a boring event to me. Lots of knuckle dragging dumb-dumbs watching subpar highschool level recess combat. I’m looking forward to Lindland-Fedor. Other then that “MMA” is becoming an unwatchable product here in the states.
Zach- I’m suprise if the numbers for BOTH The WFA and the IFL were the same (I was at both events) as the WFA show looked alot smaller than the IFL show (then again the WFA had the whole Sports Arena open while the IFL had only half of the forum), so maybe the perspective is different. 3500 seems about right but I dont know if thats all of them paying.
Citizen-…Intresting comments….
Josh, maybe you were sitting in a different seating area, but I left with a huge headache and wondered why I spent the money to see this. I rate the event a D+
Must have because it was definitly an enjoyable event. Not nearly as amazing as PRIDE but no where as bad as ur experience. Sorry that it sucked.
Sherdog has a different number of 4300, I wonder which one was right?