Sherdog.com’s Josh Gross reports Mavs owner Mark Cuban is trying to obtain the services of MMA competitor Fedor Emelianenko, a fighter who Gross claims “could be Cuban’s fighting Dirk Nowitzki.”   Which either means Emelianenko disappears during high pressure moments, or Gross didn’t watch the playoffs last year.

“I plan on making a significant investment in MMA with the goal of promoting it as a professional sport with professional athletes,” said the 49-year-old Cuban, whose net worth was listed by Forbes in 2007 to be $2.3 billion. Cuban purchased the Mavericks in 2000 after selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in stock. “There is no reason that a fighter in an undercard match should be treated any differently than how I treat our players on the Mavs.”

“We would work with his promoters to place him in fights from affiliated promoters or in fights we promote ourselves,” said Cuban, who plans on partnering with established MMA organizations to fill the weekly quota of bouts HDNet would need for its successful Friday Fight Night series.

While I’m sure Cuban will put someone with MMA expertise in charge of Emelianenko’s training, the sooner the Dancing Blizzard Enthusiast can refute rumors that he’s given the Russian full use of Erick Dampier as a sparring partner, the better.