Monday, March 12 marked the first time MMA was broadcast on network TV. The "My Network Television" channel (formerly UPN) showed the International Fight League, a new organization where fighters square off as a team to win the league championships. These teams are actually made up of fighters from the fight camps of many well known former, and some current, MMA fighters. Pat Miletich, Bas Rutten, Maurice Smith, Marco Ruas, Don Fry, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Matt Lindland, Carlos Newton and Renzo Gracie all have teams in the league. The teams have a few familiar names: former UFC fighter Vladimir Matyushenko (16-3) who has defeated Pedro Rizzo and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira; Alex Schoenauer who was a former light heavyweight competitor on UFC’s TUF Season 1; former UFC and Pride fighter Vernon White (24 - 30 – 2); and former TUF 2 heavyweight competitor Mike Whitehead.

Although the first of 9 fights started after about 15-20 minutes of promos and commercials, overall the shows were pretty good. They edited out much of the between rounds rest periods and it looked like a few stalemate moments during the fight were edited, but I could be wrong. The fighters were described once as “killers” or something during promos, which I felt was wrong. That one comment probably gave critics something more to whine about. But what really bugged me the most is that every once in a while a promo would end with a slow motion shot of a fighter being taken off a stretcher. This would be joined by the announcer saying that at the end of the program a fighter would be carried off. They even made it out as if it was the sole purpose to watch the event by saying in one of the last promos that it was “the moment you’ve all been waiting for”. Not that I was waiting for it, but the fighter that did get carried out was conscious, had his hands raised saying he was okay and it all happened during the closing credits. I thought it was ridiculous and over-dramatic.

Except for the promos, this was a great show which displayed some very talented fighters. Chris Horodecki (8-0), a lightweight out of Bas Rutten’s camp proved to be an excellent striker with great takedown defense. Two of his fights were shown where he won by TKO and KO. Ben Rothwell (21-5) was a hard-hitting heavyweight out of the Miletich camp who dominated both his fights by TKO and KO as well. Rory Markham, a go-for-broke welterweight striker out of the Miletich camp (10-2), also looked promising. One of his KO wins were shown, but the his last fight was a TKO loss to Chris Wilson, out of Matt Lindland’s camp.

The show drew a 0.8 rating. I hope it lasts because seeing MMA on network TV is pretty dam cool. Check it out at http://www.ifl.tv.