(Quit it, you homos!)

IFL CEO Jay Larkin is no stranger to making crybaby speeches when things aren’t going so well. But with the IFL canceling events until further notice, and with its publicly traded stock currently hovering at two fucking pennies (down from $17 per share in January 2007), it’s not going to get much worse than this, business-wise. Larkin knows it, which gives him the freedom to say whatever pops into his head, no matter how gross it makes him look.

Business magazine Portfolio just published a profile on IFL’s current tailspin, in which it revealed that the company is now on the auction block for a cool million. Here’s the third paragraph, which follows a description of a recent IFL fight, written in wildly purple prose:

Jay Larkin surveys the inaction with a weary, seen-it-all expression. “This isn’t my idea of fighting,” he says of the world’s fastest-growing spectator sport. “To me, two guys rolling around on the floor is tedious, like watching gay foreplay.”

Wow. And this guy runs an MMA league? He sounds like your average message-board troll. Later, presumably after a few more whisky-sodas, Larkin drops another gem:

“Our so-called friends in the M.M.A. [mixed martial arts] world are telling people that the I.F.L. is going out of business,” says Larkin. “I like to tell people you can’t spell fuck without U.F.C.”

Glug, glug. Luckily, it’s over for this man. Maybe he could go back to boxing, where things are simpler, and less similar to gay foreplay. I guess the demise of the IFL should be lamentable, but it’s hard to work up even a shred of sympathy for such a deluded dickhead. Anyway, read the article, which also contains the following highlights:

— Even IFL co-founder Gareb Shamus calls MMA “Ultimate Fighting.”

— By the end of October 2007, the IFL’s MyNetwork TV broadcasts were pulling in about 362,000 viewers (barely registering on the Nielsen scale), and their average age (49) was almost twice that of the typical UFC fan.

— Despite spending far more money than they’re taking in, Larkin still says the IFL is “debt-free.”

(Props to Steve at WallStreetFighter for the heads-up.)