The more I watch the IFL’s broadcast, the more frustrated I get, and while watching the rebroadcasting of the lightheavyweight title bout on FSN, I realized why I can’t stand the IFL.

I hate the four minute rounds and the quick standups, because they screw the grappler out of the opportunity to work and I hate the fact that their refs stand a fight up every time it gets into the ropes instead of resetting the position in the middle of the ring.

All of those things aside, there’s a reason why they have failed to connect with the majority of mixed martial arts fans.

Great organizations push their trademark fighters, and the IFL doesn’t know how to do that.

The UFC has figured out how to market their trademark fighters, and when they were hooking fans they were doing it by using the talents of standouts like Chuck and Tito and Randy. When Pride was hooking the Japanese fans they were using fighters like Fedor, Barnett and Gomi. Even as we are seeing the WEC starting to come into its own, they’re publicizing their big, consistent names, like Condit and Faber, and building up their up-and-comers, like Marcus Hicks and Brian Stann.

The IFL doesn’t know how to broadcast their fighters.

When the WEC runs a special on Versus, or the UFC runs an episode of Unleashed, they show a full fight to showcase a few fighters. When the IFL throws up a broadcast on FSN, they aren’t selling fighters, they’re trying to shove the product down your throat, and it becomes painful to the point where it’s intolerable.

The IFL does, believe it or not, have talent. They have great staples in the organization like Matyushenko and Hieron, and they have some men who are the future of the sport, like Delson Heleno and Ryan Shultz. They even have some interesting up and comers, but they don’t know how to market their fights.

It’s in the IFL’s best interest to change the format of their broadcast, stop putting up only the last round of a fight and show us the whole war so that we can see the quality of the product and the ability of the fighters. Don’t just give us a montage from the last event as a way of pushing the IFL brand, because the format of the fights isn’t revolutionary enough to merit passionate responses anyway. (lets face it, it’s not the Pride 10 minute first round, which brought a lot of finishes and excitement to that organization, or the Octagon, which has defined MMA in the western hemisphere)

If they don’t fix it, the IFL is going to have even more serious trouble, and their stockholders are going to be very disappointed.