The month of April is certainly a busy one for MMA action. The big event of the month is the UFC 83 promotion that will have Georges St. Pierre and Matt Serra fighting for the UFC Welterweight Championship. It’s scheduled for April 19 on pay per view. The rest of the card consists of:

Travis Lutter vs. Rich Franklin
Nate Quarry vs. Kalib Starnes
Charles McCarthy vs. Michael Bisping
Mark Bocek vs. Mac Danzig
Joe Doerksen vs. Jason MacDonald

This Friday (April 11th) there will be Yamma Pit Fighting debuting on pay per view and will feature Don Frye (19-6-1) and Oleg Taktarov (15-5-2), as well as an eight-man heavyweight tournament.

Dream 2 will take place in Japan and will feature the first round of a middleweight grand prix.

And don’t forget the new episodes of Ultimate Fighter 7 that will air on Spike on April 16th and 23rd.

Cage Fighting vs. Ring Fighting (Images)

The acquisition of Japan-based PRIDE by UFC sent shockwaves through the MMA world. It also promised titanic title unification matches, such as Saturday’s bout between UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (-140) and PRIDE’s Dan Henderson.

The Japan-based fighters have had mixed success in UFC action, in part because of the transition from ring to octagon. Aside from the difference in rules between the two organizations, the octagon itself provides leverage for fighters who have been taken down near the perimeter to get back to a standing position. Watch Chuck Liddell’s first loss to Jackson at a PRIDE event in 2003 and you’ll see the ring ropes did him no favors.

The cage provides the same leverage as the octagon, but most of the debate on the subtle differences between metal and rope has been spent on the UFC-PRIDE merger. We’ll see how well Henderson makes the transition this Saturday.

Kyle Maynard born with no arms or legs wrestling (Video)

I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for people to get their heads around disabled wrestler Kyle Maynard wanting to fight in mixed martial arts promotions.

Maynard has been denied a license from the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission, which he intends to appeal. The least the Commission could do is to go down to the local gym and see how he fares in sparring.

If he’s able to defend himself, then he should be able to fight. The fight would be an interesting promotion because his disability would draw interest to the fight, but it would be very difficult for Maynard to find opponents that would sign onto a fight with him. It’s sort of a “lose / lose” scenario for anyone that does.

Maynard won 35 wrestling matches but has little experience against striking disciplines. He would have to rely completely on a ground fight that would only be successful against a small percentage of opponents.

Here are some other views on it:
Bloodyelbow.com
Chron.com

There’s no doubt that MMA has come a long way in the past 15 years. But this is still a fledgling sport in terms of mainstream acceptance. So when Quinton “Rampage” Jackson handily upset the popular Chuck Liddell at the much-hyped UFC 71 event back in May, legitimate concerns were raised about the sport’s longevity.

Fear not. None other than Mark Cuban has put his money where his mouth is. The billionaire is wooing the services of Fedor Emelianenko, arguably the best heavyweight fighter in the world and a familiar face to Bodog Fight viewers.

“I plan on making a significant investment in MMA,” Cuban told Sherdog on Sunday. His HDNet high-definition specialty channel gets big ratings for MMA – yes, even bigger than those eye-popping bikini shows.

Cuban has a pretty good track record. If he’s on board, along with ESPN and other conventional media outlets, MMA’s image must be doing just fine, thank you.