THQ were the team behind the awesome (and 2 million selling) UFC 2009: Undisputed, and THQ’s chief financial officer, Paul Pucino believes his company is in a much better position:

“There’s one premiere league here, and it’s the UFC,” Pucino said.

“We have the octagon, and we have the announcers. We’d rather be in our position than any other position.”

UFC President Dana White recently gave EA a hard time for allegedly turning down making a UFC game. EA’s Peter Moore responded by saying he has the “utmost respect” for the sport and organisation and has wanted to make an MMA title for two years.

Chargin is obviously happy to handle the controversy of both signing an MMA fighter and drug issues, and is already spouting forth marketing gibberish:

“I know the signing of a mixed martial arts fighter might be considered controversial by many boxing fans across the world. When the subject of mixed martial arts versus boxing arises, it always comes down to the boxer winning a boxing match easily and vice versa for MMA. However, after having seen the replays of Diaz’s fights over the course of his career, I truly believe that this kid has what it takes to really make for some very entertaining fights within boxing. While some would state that he’s merely a slugger possessing a good chin and a heavy work-rate, there’s something about his rhythm and fighting intelligence that really caught my eye.”

Xtreme Couture boxing coach Ron Frazier has said that Forrest Griffin’s casual jog to the locker room following his embarrassing knockout loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 101 is nothing to worry about.

“He wasn’t injured. He’s an emotional guy and he just didn’t feel like sticking around. He’s done that before. After the Jardine fight, they kind of surrounded him a little bit, but he said a couple of things into the mic and left the cage pretty quickly. Just the emotions of…here is a guy who is very confident that he could win this fight and he just never had a chance to get off. He’s an emotional creature, so he left the cage. It wasn’t really a big deal.

“I think people are making a bigger deal about it then it really is. It wasn’t anything left to see anyway. Anderson had beaten him and it wasn’t like it was going to a decision. We already knew what happened, so he decided to go into the back and get his tape off and get changed and everything else. I think he was kind of comforting us more than anything else because we were all down and bothered and you know, that’s that.”

His 5-3 UFC record doesn’t appear to be the issue though…Leites has been accused of being a ‘safe’ fighter, who is unwilling to engage with his opponents, and was loudly booed during his bout with Silva and during his Split decision loss to Italian Alessio Sakara at UFC 101.

Leites was undefeated before coming to the Octagon, and is currently 14-3 in his career but where he goes from here is anyone’s guess.

When fan favourite,”the Barn Cat” Tamdan McCrory was released from his UFC contract, it was stated that a tough cut on his way to 170lbs was the main factor – well, that at his 3-3 record… Speaking to ‘Cage Potato’, he revealed that it will be for the better.

“It kind of comes with the territory. That’s what happens. You’re only as good as your last fight, and all that other cliché bulls**t. You know they can drop you if you lose so that’s always on your mind,” he said.

“I’m not in a rush to get back in the UFC. This is the time to work on my skills, put the weight back on, and make some of the adjustments that take longer than just the time between fights.”

At 27 years old, McCrory believes he is still growing in to his 6’4″, 205lb frame, and that trying to cut to 170 did not suit him.

“I don’t feel like making my body do what it doesn’t want to do. It was a rough cut. …I was thinking that I might take one more fight at welterweight but when [the UFC] said, ‘Take some time and get some wins,’ that kind of made my mind up for me.…It’s not totally a bad thing for me right now.”

This marks the start his third spell fighting for the UFC. He’s amassed a fairly solid 23-4 record over the course of his career, most recently picking up a win over Jason Lambert in May, 2009. His opponent Pokrajac is riding high on an eight win streak.

Headlined by Rich Franklin and Vitor Belfort, UFC 103 airs live on pay-per-view on September 19th from the American Airlines Arena. The 13 fight strong card is below:

Main Televised Card

Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort

Mirko Cro Cop vs. Junior Dos Santos

Mike Swick vs. Martin Kampmann

Josh Koscheck vs. Frank Trigg

Tyson Griffin vs. Hermes Franca

Preliminary Card

Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller

Jim Miller vs. Thiago Tavares

Dan Lauzon vs. Rafaello Oliveira

Paul Daley vs. Brian Foster

Drew McFedries vs. Tomasz Drwal

Eliot Marshall vs. Jason Brilz

Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Igor Pokrajac

Rob Emerson vs. Rafael Dos Anjos

The big debate at the minute is whether Anderson Silva should stay in his current division and defend his belt, or should he move on for a new challenge in a division that is filled with bigger names, including Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida and Thiago Alves, Tito Ortiz and Shogun Rua.

For a man that wants to be the best, you have to fight the best so maybe this is the right thing to do for him…however if the middleweight belt was simply put up for grabs surely the satisfaction of winning it would be much less for anyone in the middleweight division?