A delegation from the UFC is due to meet with Quebec officials in Montreal on Tuesday in a bid to salvage a soldout mixed martial arts card that has seemingly fallen into legislative limbo.

The UFC insists that its April 18 show at the Bell Centre remains on track.

"The UFC is going to Canada, this fight sold out faster than UFC 83 did last year, we are going back to Montreal," UFC president Dana White said in a statement given to The Canadian Press.

But the UFC and province will have to find a way around the problem that the unified MMA rules the organization uses do not jive with the "mixed boxing" regulations on the books in Quebec.

There was some cause for optimism Monday when a Quebec official said there was a will on both sides to make it work. However, it appears there would have to be some sort of accommodation on the rules.

Rejean Theriault, communications director for the provincial government agency that oversees combat sports in Quebec, said he could not comment further until he had heard what the UFC had to say.

The rules in Quebec have not changed. But the enforcement has -- with Theriault saying that it was only learned recently that the previous Quebec Boxing Commission leadership had not been enforcing the provincial regulations.

The Quebec regulations forbid elbow and knee strikes -- hitting an opponent with the bent knee or bent elbow is deemed a foul.

The rules also say that if a fighter is knocked down, the referee must send his opponent to a neutral corner. They also forbid judo-type throws -- "using any other part of the body than the hands, arms, feet or legs, to make an opponent fall."

Finally, the Quebec regulations say the cage cannot be bigger than 7.5 metres (24 feet) between two facing corners. The UFC Octagon is 30 feet.

That did not stop the UFC from staging a wildly successful show last April -- UFC 83 -- or other organizations such as the now-defunct TKO from holding events under the unified MMA rules used in most jurisdictions that sanction the sport.

Theriault said when it was discovered that the rules were not being applied properly, all promoters -- including the UFC which had applied for a licence to stage UFC 97 -- were told they had to follow the rules.

One of the concerns is the province could be vulnerable to litigation if a fighter was hurt in a bout that ignored provincial regulations.

That has left the UFC with a mess on its hands.

Fans snapped up some 13,000 tickets in the first five hours of pre-sales for the UFC 97 show at the Bell Centre. And it's believed almost all the tickets sold out before going on sale to the public last Saturday.

Last year's Montreal show drew a sellout of 20,011 -- a record for the UFC and mixed martial arts in North America -- within one minute of going on sale to the public. It was the UFC's first Canadian event, one which was so successful that White still raves about it.

The provincial rules came under the spotlight last Friday at the inaugural StrikeBox show, which attempted to offer a variation of MMA rules by excluding the ground game. But Theriault said the issue had surfaced before that.

The Quebec boxing commission is overseen by the Regie des Alcools, des courses et des jeux, a Quebec agency under whose umbrella falls alcohol, gaming, and combat sports among other things.

There is big money at stake with the card. The gate for UFC 83 was $5 million and the pay-per-view audience for such shows generates many millions more -- at $44.99 a shot -- not to mention money spent by the influx of fight fans to Montreal.

The Quebec commission would be a more modest loser if the UFC show did not take place. Its take from UFC 83 was more than $55,000.