IFL continues fall, cancels August 15 event

The International Fight League on Tuesday announced that it has canceled its planned August 15 event at the Izod Center in East Rutherford , N.J. , signaling what seems to be the inevitable conclusion to the imploding fight promotion.

In a prepared statement, the IFL said that it continues to explore options for maximizing shareholder value in the publicly traded company, but if the IFL is unable to leverage any of those options, the company may seek protection from its creditors through a court proceeding, otherwise known as bankruptcy.

During a media conference call on Tuesday, IFL CEO Jay Larkin addressed the concerns around the company's future and although things look admittedly bleak, he was unable to set a timeline for the status of the promotion.

"It's an ongoing process. Something could come into place tomorrow morning, something may not come into place at all," Larkin stated. "We're constantly talking to people, and we've managed to generate a good deal of interest. But I couldn't tell you that any one of them are ready to come riding in on a white horse right now. We're going to stick around as long as we possibly can, and that's the major reason for canceling the August show."

The prepared statement also indicated that the IFL will "continue to downsize its staff to reduce costs," which is the corporately correct way of saying they will be laying off more of their employees.

The downsizing, according to Larkin , does not include any fighters on their roster, but he did mention contractual obligations with the coaches in the league, and other employees that could be casualties of the changes.

"We are exploring our contractual relationships with our coaches. We're looking at that, but we certainly are not cutting coaches," said Larkin . "We're trying to minimize with the heads that have to roll because everybody's been in this together for a while and everybody has a great deal of respect and affection for each other, but if we don't take some radical steps there won't be a company."

Several IFL athletes are already scheduled to fight for other various promotions. Bart Palaszewski, Rory Markham, and Mark Miller are all fighting on this weekend's Adrenaline MMA debut event in Chicago . Andre Gusmao recently signed to fight for the Ultimate Fighting Championship .

While the IFL has ruled out the current possibility of selling off fighter contracts as a part of their asset liquidation, Larkin said that they have no intention of holding back their athletes from being successful.

"We'll treat every case on a case-by-case basis, and the fighters are certainly a priority of ours," he said in regards to fighters leaving the IFL for a different promotion. "We certainly would never hold anybody back from an opportunity."