The IFL was founded January 7, 2006, by real- estate developer Kurt Otto and Wizard magazine founder Gareb Shamus, two well-financed devotees of mixed martial arts who were inspired by the Mark Kerr documentary The Smashing Machine.
With the IFL, they intended to create a system not only to showcase mixed martial arts action but to also provide a business plan that would allow fighters a greater share of profits.
It had been widely speculated that the IFL, with the deep pockets of its founders, television deal and innovative business plan, would become a major circuit for MMA in North America, directly competing with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The inaugural event was held on April 29, 2006, at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, featuring the Quad City Silverbacks vs the Los Angeles Anacondas and the Seattle Tiger Sharks vs the New York Pitbulls, with a superfight between Jens Pulver and Cole Escovedo.
On August 31, 2006, publicly traded (OTCBB) company, Paligent Inc., principally held by New Jersey developer and real estate industrialist Richard J. Kurtz,[4] authorized a merger agreement that coincided with its acquisition of the IFL.
"[9] This event was cancelled due to the company's financial problems, and no announcement was made in regards to when or if it would resume full-scale operations again.
[11] That same month, Joe Favorito, former IFL senior vice president, cited financial troubles for the closing of the company on July 31, 2008.
[12] The 2008 International Fight League season was to have had at the minimum eight events which would be based out of three main sites; Las Vegas, New Jersey and Connecticut.
A planned August 15 event was canceled due to the company's financial condition as mentioned in a June 10 press release.
[15] The premiere of IFL Battleground on March 12, 2007, on MyNetworkTV scored a 0.8 household rating (1.12 million viewers), and gained 250% in all key male demographics (0.7 vs. 0.2) over February.
The camps for this season were as follows: 1 Antonio Inoki was originally going to be the Tokyo Sabres' coach and mentor but has since been dropped by the IFL.
Reasoning was that Tompkins has "spread himself to thin" between his duties of coaching the Anacondas and becoming a new trainer at the Randy Couture owned gym in Las Vegas.
Shamrock thought that Razorclaw Brian Foster might still be offered a stay in the IFL but will join a different team due to his successful 2007 season and his entrance into the 2007 GP.
[25] In order to appease the many MMA critics who felt that the team concept the IFL displayed had no place in the one-on-one sport of MMA, the IFL decided to conduct an end of the year Grand Prix which would take the four best fighters of each weight class to fight it out in a mini tournament that would be conducted over two events.
Each Grand Prix winner was crowned the first IFL champion of their weight class and awarded titles to defend during the 2008 season.
So far these superfights have occurred along with their results: The IFL followed the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts established by the New Jersey Athletic Board, with several exceptions.