Card By Card is Single Blog Takedown's rundown of the major MMA events of the month.
No breathers heading into April, folks. There was plenty to enjoy in March for MMA fans, but almost all the major promotions are bringing out their big guns for April to compete with championship college basketball, the return of baseball to the sports calendar... and each other. UFC goes abroad with two of their top three fighters defending belts, Strikeforce premieres its newest big name, WEC launches its first pay-per-view and Bellator returns to light up the YouTubes. Break out your Outlook - it's going to be a busy month. Seven title fights in April!
WEC is betting big on the California Kid to lead them to the PPV promised land.
UFC
Keep in mind that tonight (the 31st) is UFC Fight Night at 8 PM on Spike, with Kenny Florian headlining against Takanori Gomi. Roy Nelson, Stefan Struve, Nate Quarry, and Ross Pearson also compete. Following that will be the season premiere of The Ultimate Fighter, which hopefully this time out will feature fighters with actual, honest-to-God conditioning.
UFC 112: Invincible (April 10, 10 PM ET, PPV): Abu Dhabi! It's not just a place to mail Nermal anymore. Rather, it's home to what should be a spectacular card to watch, with an outdoor venue being specially constructed in a place called Ferrari World. Abu Dhabi already has an MMA reputation with an elite grappling championship held there every year. The UFC connection results from the sale earlier this year of a 10% stake in the company to UAE-based Flash Entertainment.
The card is stacked with big names, headlined by a pair of title fights. While Anderson Silva was originally scheduled to defend his middleweight crown against Vitor Belfort, a training injury forces former SBT favorite Demian Maia to step in and see if he can get the world-class striker to the ground so Maia can work his stellar jiu-jitsu. In addition, B.J. Penn looks to add to a winning streak at lightweight with five rounds against Frankie Edgar. Edgar, 11-1, will look to derail Penn with wrestling skills. The other big fight on the card is a matchup of very familiar names to UFC fans. Matt Hughes will step into the cage for the first time in eleven months when he takes on Renzo Gracie. Gracie, who will be making his UFC debut, will of course be trying to avenge the family name - those Gracies, what aren't they avenging? - after Hughes' dominant TKO of Royce Gracie way back at UFC 60. Renzo is coming off an even longer layoff, having not fought since 2007.
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Article comments
1 - Jodie
California Kid is bad!
2 - Reallyraw
There are some awesome cards coming up. I also just heard rumor that Nick Diaz is fighting Sakurai (sp?) in Japan in May.