(Leites sells tickets to the gun show while Marc Ratner continues to stare at Arianny’s tits. / Photo via Sherdog)

You know, there was a time when this website thought that Thales Leites had a legitimate shot at beating Anderson Silva, or could at least give him a good fight. Neither of those things turned out to be accurate, but at the very least, Leites was a top ten middleweight who had strung together five straight UFC wins in 2007-2008, including first-round submissions of Floyd Sword, Ryan Jensen, and Drew McFedries.

Leites’s title challenge against Silva at UFC 97 was both uncompetitive and dull as hell; there was a lot of butt-flopping from Leites, and a lot of weird crap from a clearly disinterested Silva. Leites followed up the unanimous decision loss with a split-decision defeat against Alessio Sakara, and the UFC gave him his walking papers.

Since then, Leites has gone 6-1 competing for promotions like MFC and Superior Challenge, and is riding a three-fight win streak with victories over Tor Troeng, Jeremy Horn, and Matt Horwich. And so, the UFC is giving Leites another chance, three years after his last Octagon appearance, booking him at UFC 163: Aldo vs. Pettis (August 3rd; HSBC Arena, Rio De Janeiro), against former BAMMA champ Tom Watson. Watson is currently 1-1 in the UFC, and is coming off a TKO win over Stanislav Nedkov at UFC on Fuel TV: Barao vs. McDonald.

Can Leites prove his worth the second time around? Do any of you care? In other UFC 163 booking news…

(Just remember, Stipe: The bigger they are, the funnier they lawn-chair. / Photo via MMAJunkie.com)

The UFC makes its first (and only!) U.K. stop of 2012 today, with a card that’s low on star power but high on potential fireworks. If you’re reading this right now, it means you’re at least sort-of interested, and that’s good enough for us. So which heavyweight main-eventer is about to put himself “in the mix”? Can Dan Hardy string together his first back-to-back wins since 2009? Will Matt Wiman be just another notch on Paul “Sassangle” Sass‘s sassbelt? And WTF is wrong with Kyle Kingsbury, anyway? The answers to most of those questions will be revealed shortly.

Handling liveblog business for the UFC on FUEL 5 main card broadcast is George Shunick, who will be stacking round-by-round results after the jump beginning at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m PT. Let us know how you feel in the comments section, and refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest. And as always, thanks for spending part of your weekend with us.

(Reason #6: Impromptu limbo competitions!) 

The UFC will be making it’s return to jolly old England this weekend and go figure, the card is of the mid to low interest range and will be broadcast for free here in the States (unless you don’t have FUEL, of course. What’s that? NO ONE has Fuel?!). Not that we’re complaining about a night of free fights, but the buzz surrounding this event could best be described as tumbleweeds. Fortunately for you, there are at least five good reasons to tune in Saturday afternoon, which we’ve laid out in a convenient list format with bold titles and everything. Aren’t we just the best?

1. A Main Event That Definitely Ain’t Going the Distance 

As BG explained earlier, a fight with Stefan Struve ends in one of three ways; Struve via submission, Struve via (T)KO, or Struve’s opponent via uber-violent KO. His fights are like the Paranormal Activity movies; you know from the start how badly things will end for the parties involved, but it’s the path to that ending that you’re interested in. The same can be said for the undefeated Stipe Miocic, minus the uber-violent losses of course. Miocic has been on an absolute tear since entering the UFC and has finished 2 of his 3 opponents in brutal fashion. In fact, in a combined 38 fights, the two main event players have only seen the judges scorecards twice. And Saturday night will be no different; Struve will either take this fight to the ground and try to pull off a sub or throw caution to the wind and get savaged. In either case, it will make for one incredibly entertaining fight.

(Based on current exchange rates, he’d be able to redeem those for one and a half Bellator belts. / Props: poster-boy.co.uk)

Nigerian-English light-heavyweight Jimi Manuwa — who unofficially came in at #14 on this year’s 10 Greatest Undefeated Fighters in MMA list — signed with the UFC earlier this month, and now has his debut date and opponent set. The UFC has confirmed that Manuwa will be welcomed to the Octagon by Kyle Kingsbury at UFC on FUEL 5: Struve vs. Miocic, September 29th in Nottingham, England.

Manuwa carries a spotless 11-0 record with all wins by stoppage within the first two rounds, and last competed at BAMMA 8 last December, where he scored a TKO over Antony Rea at the end of round 1. The fight followed a two-and-a-half year stint as the light-heavyweight champion of UCMMA. Manuwa previously turned down an offer to make his UFC debut at UFC 138, because he was coming off of a long injury layoff.

Meanwhile, Kyle Kingsbury has dropped his last two fights against Glover Teixeira and Stephan Bonnar; taking a third-straight loss against a promotional first-timer could cost “Kingsbu” his contract.

After the jump: Manuwa’s MMA highlight reel, via www6maxnl.

(Video courtesy of HustleShow)

- Cats With Boobs (WorldwideInterweb)

- Build an MMA Fighter’s Neck (MensFitness)

- The Hurt Business: Highs and Lows in the Brick City (MMAFighting)

- Jason Segel Talks Funny (MadeMan)

- The 10 Dumbest Things About St. Patty’s Day (Guyism)

- It’s Come To This: Another ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ Movie (ScreenJunkies)

- 8-Second WMMA KO (BuzzerBeat)

- 10 Awesome, Yet Painful Concert Fails (Break)

- The Peruvian Fight Club Festival, Takanakuy (TuVez)

- Doc Love: The Right Way to Pick Up on Facebook (AskMen)

- Brass Tacks Infographic: Trivia On Jonah Hill (Clutch.MTV)

- How Women Are Wired (TheRugged)

- 21 Jump Street Review (FilmDrunk)

- Jon Jones: Being Champ is My Destiny  (FightersOnly)

- Tom Watson on the UFC, Brian Stann and BAMMA (BleacherReport)

- 25 Reasons Not to Ride the Bus (HolyTaco)

(An artist’s rendition of Tom Watson with his head shaved, dressed in a bear costume. I promise this will make more sense if you watch the video after the jump.)

Our friend Jonathan Shrager has been talking with BAMMA middleweight champion Tom “Kong” Watson, who has established a UK MMA charity account for Children in Need, one of the most high-profile and prestigious annual TV charity events across the pond. Essentially, it’s to raise money on behalf of an umbrella fund labelled “UK MMA,” helping a great cause while enhancing public perceptions of the sport within the UK, and introducing new mainstream audiences to MMA and its personalities.

The Brits are several years behind the U.S. in terms of general perceptions of the sport, so this would certainly go some way to improving that situation. Several prominent figures within the UK MMA community are already committed to backing the bid, including Nate Marquardt, Che Mills, Andre Winner and Alex Reid.

Here is an interview Jonny recently conducted with Tom which elaborates on his noble vision…

(Tom Watson vs. Murilo Rua)

If you’re here to read about Murilo Rua running through Tom Watson to claim the Bamma Middleweight strap, have a seat, we need to talk. “Ninja” looked content to stand and bang with Watson early on, but he was clearly getting the worst of the exchanges. By round two, the damage from Watson’s leg kick assault showed in every step Rua took. From there the hobbled fighter served as target practice for “Kong”, whose time at Tristar and Greg Jackson’s has clearly paid off. To his credit Ninja never stopped fighting, at least not until that head kick from Watson put him out on his feet. Following the third round TKO loss, Rua took to twitter to thank his family and friends for their support and to announce his retirement from MMA.

Video of the Trigg-Phillips fight, and full results, after the jump.

(Now that MMA is legal in Ontario, the bandwagon will undoubtedly carry in a glut of Dana White wannabes. Let’s hope the OAC knows how to weed out the legit promoters from the scumbags.)

It looks like the UFC might get beaten to the proverbial punch when it comes to holding the inaugural sanctioned MMA event in Ontario.

CagePotato.com has learned from a source close to the situation that several promotions, including San Jose-based Strikeforce and Edmonton’s Maximum Fighting Championship have applied for promoter’s licenses in Ontario and pending approval by the Ontario Athletic Commission, at least three shows have been penciled in ahead of the UFC’s April 29 show in Toronto.

Although none of the shows have been given the go-ahead by the province as of time of writing, a number of venues have been tentatively reserved — some by first-time promoters — across the province in such locales as Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton and Orillia.