FanHouse Thales Leites

Former UFC middleweight Dean Lister has signed a multi-fight deal with Maximum Fighting Championship and his first opponent for the Canadian promotion will be former UFC title challenger Thales Leites in the main event of MFC 23 on Dec. 4 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Thales Leites, the most recent UFC middleweight title challenger, has found a new home in the Maximum Fighting Championship in Canada.

It is fitting given his soft-spoken demeanor that Nate Marquardt has very quietly been among the top-rated middleweights in the world for years. The 30-year-old Coloradan is 9-2 over his last 11 fights, with his only losses coming to awe-inspiring champion Anderson Silva and the former No. 1 contender Thales Leites, a fight in which Marquardt had two points deducted for fouls and still only narrowly lost by split-decision.

At UFC 102, Marquardt (28-8-2) will square off with unbeaten Brazilian ground wizard Demian Maia. The winner is not likely to receive a title shot, as UFC President Dana White has indicated Dan Henderson is the likely next foe for "the Spider," but a win will certainly move Marquardt right on Henderson's tail.

The contender recently took a few minutes from his training to talk to FanHouse about his recent improvement, the risk of going to the ground with Maia, and chasing the title.

MMA Twitter universe is getting excited about Saturday night's Strikeforce fight between Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg, so we have a number of questions about the fight in our latest MMA Twitter mailbag about the fight, starting with whether Cyborg winning would be good or bad for women's MMA.

We also have a question about a strange couple of days in the UFC, when two fighters lost their jobs, then got them back, then lost them again. Your questions and my answers for the MMA Twitter mailbag are below.

Thales Leites, who less than four months ago competed for the UFC middleweight title, was given his walking papers in a meeting Wednesday afternoon with the UFC, FanHouse confirmed with a source close to Leites.

Leites (14-3) had exclusively fought for the UFC since The Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale in November 2006, where he lost his promotional debut to Martin Kampmann, but would bounce back with five straight wins to earn a shot against champion Anderson Silva. However, after the two turned out a lackluster and tentative five-round performance, both faced heavy criticism and required a strong follow-up outing to restore their reputation.

PHILADELPHIA -- Anderson Silva walked into UFC 101 surrounded by boos, a goat, and left bathed in adulation, the G.O.A.T., or at least something close.

Needing a highlight-reel worthy performance to quiet the sudden doubts emanating from two straight lackluster performances, Silva -- fighting for only the second time at 205 pounds -- toyed with former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin before putting him away with a stunning short right in just 3:23 of the first round.

PHILADELPHIA -- This is the UFC 101 undercard live blog for all six matches on the undercard. FanHouse is live in Philly and will provide round-by-round details of every match.

The live card begins below.

PHILADELPHIA -- From the beginning, he's been the underdog. You want to talk about taking the hard road? In his first professional fight, Forrest Griffin didn't face a fellow rookie. He didn't even compete against a hot prospect. The first time he stepped into a cage, Griffin fought Dan "the Beast" Severn, an ex-UFC tournament champion in his 58th career fight.

Most fighters don't have 58 fights in their entire career, so Griffin was literally fighting a guy with two careers worth of experience on him. Proposed bouts with such an experience disparity would not even be sanctioned today. Though he lost, he showed the toughness that would become his trademark, taking Severn to a decision. So Griffin isn't exactly intimidated at the prospect of facing UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, a winner of 10 straight who is moving up to 205 pounds to face Griffin in a non-title bout at UFC 101.

"There's the old saying, 'If you're going to be stupid, you better be tough,'" he said. "Well, I've been a lot of both. I'm trying to be maybe a little smart and tough. We'll see how that works out for me."

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PHILADELPHIA -- During every UFC pre-fight press conference, the organization brings up the head of the state athletic commission to address the media and the fighters. Almost every time, the executive says little of substance, essentially welcoming the promotion and the fighters and talking about the general economic impact of the event. But Pennsylania Commission executive director Greg Sirb had his own agenda at UFC 101, and that was warning the fighters about the notorious Philly fans.

Most of the best middleweights in mixed martial arts are in the UFC, just as most of the best fighters in every weight class from bantamweight to heavyweight are under contract to Zuffa. But as I post my new list of the Top 10 middleweights in MMA, a list topped by UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva, I want to commend Affliction for putting together the best middleweight fight possible outside the Octagon: Vitor Belfort vs. Jorge Santiago.