As you have probably heard by now, the IFL is merifully abandoning the "team" format in favor of the natural team format in MMA that already exists, namely, camps. In addition to this change, the IFL has essentially issued an open challenge for any non-IFL camp to challenge any IFL camp. Over at Sherdog, Scott Holmes makes an important point about the benefit of this alteration to the IFL model. Notable quote:
In other words, if there's a team out there that thinks they have some guys that could knock off some of Miletich's boys, now is your time.
At first glance it's a tad confusing since it seems as if everything will just be up to the IFL's discretion, but that was the main issue that kept the IFL weighed down before. Stringent schedules and pairings impaired the organization from putting on the best events it could. The ability to make matches and changes on the fly should alleviate the need to rely on lesser fighters.
If you're organization is hampered and unable to put on the key match-ups because of the structure of the organization itself, it's time to change. This switch is long overdue. The IFL was hurtling towards a weird space where it would at once be a team-based league yet have belts and superfights to compensate for the second-tier fights that were often made as a consequence of the rigid team structure. Not only can the IFL now ostensibly bring in fighters from around the country and world to compete, it can do so with enough flexibility to maximize the strength of their talent pool.
The IFL still faces an uphill battle in many important respects, but with respect to this improvement, better late than never.
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