AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > February > 22 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USFight league seeks its place in sports scene
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
As much as we would like to think the human race has come a long way over the last several million years, we really haven’t changed that much. We threw rocks at T-Rex and laughed when he blamed the dinosaur next to him. We rubbed two sticks together and burned down trees. We stared when the first Edsel hit an oak tree and thought, “Cool.” Evolution pretty much stopped right there.
Today, we can watch four major sports and notable peripherals at the pro, college and lingering amateur levels. But what sells? Mayhem.
Tonight, something called the International Fight League is being staged at the Gwinnett Arena. The IFL is one of several mixed martial arts competition leagues, ranging from the pay-per-view Nirvana of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to the lesser known “World Extreme Cagefighting.”
Rubber mallets and sling blades are optional.
There’s an old Far Side cartoon above my desk. It depicts a dinosaur addressing a conference of his brotherhood, saying, “The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen. The world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut.”
If only the morons hadn’t stumbled into the tar pits looking for a drink, they’d be running the planet by now.
Then again, at least we know how to market and merchandise. The IFL, which is the only MMA competition in a team format, began only last year. This will make nine shows, and it’s already a publicly traded company. “IFLI” opened at $2 a share over the counter. It closed Thursday at ($11.66).
The league also has television rights deals with Fox Sports Net and MyNetwork (formerly UPN). Gary Bettman must have IFL-envy.
When league co-founder Kurt Otto says, “We’re here to stay,” there’s no reason to doubt him. Several sports once considered a curiosity (morbid or otherwise) have long since become mainstream. We cite: The X-games.
When asked why MMA has exploded, he recites the standard industry answer: “If you’re driving down the street and there’s four corners, and on one they’re playing hockey, on another they’re playing football, on another they’re playing [soccer], and on another there’s two dudes duking it out, what are you gonna watch? It goes back to the Romans. You want to go to the ring to see who prevails.”
The IFL really is international. Three of its 12 teams are based in Tokyo, Toronto and Russia (although local fill-ins often round out the card). But there are no real “home” games. This is more of a traveling road show, the idea being to spread the word as quickly as possible.
So tonight in Duluth, we have the Chicago Redbears vs. New York Pitbulls, and the Toronto Dragons vs. Portland Wolfpack. We market. We merchandise.
Otto: “All of the teams are named after vicious animals of prey.”
Just in case you thought “Dragons” were indigenous to Toronto.
Each team has competitors in five weight classes. Bouts are three four-minute rounds. In an attempt to broaden the fan base, gore has been minimized. Head-splitting, concussive-rendering elbows and the like are not allowed. Matches are held in a ring, not a cage.
It’s a new sports landscape. Boxing is off the radar. It shot itself in the foot for decades, until it finally ran out of feet. But the IFL retains some of boxing’s artistic side and off-beat characters.
Among tonight’s competitors is Peter Kaljevic. He is 5-foot-9, 155 and 43 years old, but don’t tell anybody about the age. He was born in 1963, but when he defected from the former Yugoslavia in 1984, he was given a passport with a birth year of 1968.
“They made a mistake on my papers but I said, ‘Don’t fix it, maybe it will make my career longer,’” he said, laughing.
Kaljevic enjoyed karate and kick boxing as a youth. But mostly he played a lot of chess. “Eight hours a day,” he said. “My father made me. It was very hard.”
He actually defected during a chess tournament in Philadelphia. He never warned his family because he wasn’t sure he would go through with it. For a month, he slept on park benches and showered at a gym. He eventually moved to New York.
His first job: as a bouncer at a club. “If I didn’t try to stop the fights, I wouldn’t get paid,” he said. “It was a mess.”
Other odd jobs followed, then boxing and kick boxing. Brief commentary: “Boxing promoters treat you like a prostitute.”
Mo Fozi, a 28-year-old former boxer from London, agrees. Fozi soured on boxing when he lost a Golden Gloves bout in New York. “It was a controversial decision,” he said. (Go figure.)
“Boxing is not what it used to be — it’s a lost cause,” he said. “The thing with MMA and the IFL is all of their best guys are fighting each other. That doesn’t happen in boxing.”
Otto claims several IFL fighters earn salaries and bonuses totaling “$45,000 to six figures.” Fozi: “I’ve heard that. But truthfully I’m not at that point. I make a couple of thousand a night.” So he delivers and installs kitchen cabinets in Queens.
Jim Abrille is another non-salaried fighter tonight. Promoters wanted a local product so they found Abrille, who manages a “Knuckle Up” fitness and martial arts studio in Midtown.
This will be Abrille’s first IFL bout, although he is a veteran of MMA events. The 31-year-old even competed in something called, “King of the Cage,” calling that “a little more barbaric,” than the IFL.
“The King of the Cage was like a UFC event,” Abrille said. “They allowed any kind of submission, joint manipulation, elbows, shoulders, knees, chokeholds. Probably the worst thing you could do was attack the spine.
“The strangest thing to me was how they made it such a spectacle. With the lights and the cameras, I couldn’t see anything until I got to the cage. Then you hear that cage lock.”
Fear not. Abrille won in 37 seconds. He tore a tendon in his finger but twisted his opponent’s leg until he submitted.
“It seems like they have made the IFL much more like a sport,” he said.
Hopefully that won’t hurt the gate.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Comments
By Got12?
February 23, 2007 08:49 AM | Link to this
You have pleasantly surprised me with this one, Jeff. I expected this article to be extremely negative (like all of your others). As an avid MMA fan and amateur martial artist, I thank you for such a “nice” and informative article. Could this be a turning point in your career?
By ga_tech_92
February 23, 2007 10:08 AM | Link to this
I watched some highlights on maxim of the ‘greatest IFL knockouts”. I think the sport is solid, but there was one very disturbing thing, which will hinder it in my opinion. That disturbing thing is the propensity for the fighters to beat the crap out of the opponents head even when the man is OBVIOUSLY unconscious on the mat. That is ridiculous and inhuman. People are volunteers in the ring, so I suppose I shouldn’t be concerned. I see a man having his head smashed in by another man, while unconscious and I can’t help but think someone will die from that one day. I know the refs try to jump in when they see that happening, but are the men not smart enough to know that the other man is completely unconscious and thus the fight is over? Other than that, I like it. Just stop the gore after the match is oviously over. One good punch to a man who is asleep can do significant (and uncalled for) permanent damage.