Saturday night at UFC 103, the MMA legend Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic took to the Octagon again, in hopes of proving that he was still the fighter we saw in Pride, and that he could perform in the UFC. His opponent, Junior dos Santos, beat the once feared striker to the punch throughout the fight, before the bout was called off two minutes into the third round. Following the loss, Filipovic spoke to the Croatian website Jutarnji.hr about the fight, and his possible retirement.

Vitor Belfort, Rick Story and Brian Foster each earned $65,000 “fight night” bonuses at Saturday’s UFC 103 event at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, UFC President Dana White announced at the post-fight press conference.

In the UFC 103 headlining bout between former UFC champions Rich Franklin and Vitor Belfort, Belfort made good on his return to the UFC. The Brazilian rocked Franklin with a right, then dropped him with a left before forcing Yves Lavigne to call a stop to the contest with more punches to the downed [...]

Welcome to MMAFrenzy.com’s live coverage of UFC 103, which takes place today at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas and is headlined by a catchweight matchup between Rich Franklin and Vitor Belfort. The five-fight pay-per-view card also features Junior dos Santos vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Josh Koscheck vs. Frank Trigg, while a one-hour Spike TV broadcast includes Cole Miller vs. Efrain Escudero and Tomasz Drwal vs. Drew McFedries.

Join MMAFrenzy.com beginning at 7pm ET for live coverage of the UFC 103 preliminary card, followed by main card coverage beginning at 9pm ET.

Two former UFC stars were in action last night at Adrenaline MMA IV in Council Bluffs, Iowa, among others. Former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia and UFC light heavyweight fighter Houston Alexander were both looking to pick up much needed wins when they stepped inside the cage last night, and both did just that.

It’s prediction time again here at MMAFrenzy.com, and I’m going to channel my inner “Carnac the Magnificent” and try to tell you what’s on the other side of tonight’s UFC 103 fights and some of the other staff from the site have joined in as well.

Fighters weighed-in today at the Dallas Convention Center Arena for UFC 103 which will take place Saturday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Pay-per-view headliner Rich Franklin made weight for the 195 catch weight bout weighing in at 195 pounds on the nose. Co-headliner Vitor Belfort missed weight by a quarter of pound and has two hours to lose the additional weight.

Read about the latest MMA news and notes in MMAFrenzy.com’s Quick Hits, including UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre hopes to be “110 percent” healed by October, UFC 103 already setting a gate record for American Airlines Arena in Dallas, and details on Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers possibly taking place in Chicago.

The tenth season of the UFC’s reality show, “The Ultimate Fighter” debuted last night following “Ultimate Fight Night 19″ and smashed the series’ previous ratings record or 2.8 million for the finale of season three in 2006. The premiere episode of “The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights” brought in a jaw dropping 4.1 million viewers, and became the highest rated original show in Spike’s history, according to a Spike TV press release.

The UFC has a history of counter-programming their competition, that is, putting on their own show opposite the competition’s. When Affliction debuted on July 19, 2008 headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia on pay-per-view, the UFC threw together a full night of fights on Spike including Anderson Silva’s light heavyweight debut. Most recently they aired bouts from UFC 100 on Spike only a month after the event, to counter Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg. It stood to reason they would try to do something along those line when Emelianenko makes his Strikeforce debut, in fact UFC president Dana White had already said publicly that they had in the works a third November event to be headlined by BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez, and hinted that it would air on network television.

Recent Strikeforce acquisition, and top ranked heavyweight fighter Fedor Emelianenko will make his Strikeforce debut against Brett Rogers on national television. The promotions first event to be televised on CBS since striking their deal with the network will take place on November 7, 2009. The bout itself has been locked up for some time, though the date had yet to be finalized.

Takanori Gomi, a top lightweight fighter that has had a tough go of things recently, announced Tuesday that his upcoming bout at Vale Tudo Japan ‘09 would be his final fight in Japan. “The Fireball Kid” made the announcement during a press conference to promote the October 30th event, and his official involvement in it.

Gomi also made the strange announcement that in addition to attempting to move his MMA career to the US he would also be pursuing a second professional career as a surfer.

On Tuesday Strikeforce officially announced the addition of four fighters to their upcoming “Strikeforce Challengers” event scheduled for November 6th in Fresno, CA. The fighters added to the card include Ben Holscher, Casey Olson, and Anthony Ruiz, as well as female contender Zoila Frausto, though no opponents for the four combatants were named.

Tomorrow night Oklahoma City is UFC Ultimate Fight Night 19, headlined by Nate Diaz vs. Melvin Guillard. There are certainly some interesting match ups, and a few that on paper seem a bit one sided. I decided I would go on the record with my official predictions for the event, and so have some of the other staff here at MMAFrenzy.

The WEC officially announced today that they have scheduled WEC 44 for The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event is scheduled to take place on November 18th, and will be headlined by a featherweight title match between champion Mike Thomas Brown and challenger Jose Aldo.

In addition to this official bout, MMAJunkie is reporting that a bantam weight matchup between Frank Gomez and Seth Dikun has been unofficially added to the card, and FiveKnuckles says that Kyle Dietz will likely face Noah Thomas on the November 18th card.