By Tim Furious

Those of us that have been fighting for Randy “The Legend” Couture to fight the not-so-legendary-anymore Fedor Emelianenko won’t have to wait any longer…if they own an XBOX 360. The two former heavyweight champions waged war in a virtual octagon before a small live crowd to promote EA Sports MMA, the newest mixed martial arts video game to hit the geek scene. The game features both fighters on the cover.

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While boasting Randy Couture, who is still under contract with the UFC, this game also features a lot of other big names such Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem, Andrei Arolovski, Tim Sylvia, Hidehiko Yoshida, Bobby Lashley, Bob Sapp, Bas Rutten, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Cung Le, Nick Dias, Jake Shields, Frank Trigg, Josh Thompson, Mizuto Hirota and Gilbert Melendez.

Former NFL running back, Herschel Walker, is also in the game. The former Dallas Cowboy and Philadelphia Eagle is probably just being used because of his NFL celebrity. He’s the only fighter in the game that has just one professional MMA fight under his belt.

EA Sports MMA is not to be confused with the popular series that features exclusive UFC talent. That game’s called UFC 2010: Undisputed and has Michael Bisping on the cover (I have no idea how he landed the gig either). The irony is that “disputed” is the word you could use to describe Dana White’s feelings on EA Sports MMA.

White tried to approach EA Sports about developing a game for the Ultimate Fighting Championship back in the day, but the big shots at EA Sports declined his offer. So instead, White took all of his licenses and branding over to THQ which released. Before that, the UFC had worked with Crave Entertainment to develop its games on the first Playstation and XBOX, but they went bankrupt (and the games were terrible anyways).

Due to the massive popularity of the UFC brand that THQ developed, EA Sports has now built a game of their own. Surprise, surprise. So how does Randy Couture end up in both games? Simple – he never signed over his “likeness” for video game use to White and the UFC. Smart move.

So Dana White is all hot and bothered with EA Sports, a company which has made a huge impact in the gaming world with the NFL Madden franchise, their NHL Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL series and NBA games. They’ve also made big splashes in the nerd world with games like Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and The Sims which was also ported to the PC.

White is so pissed about the release of EA Sports MMA that he’s told his own fighters that they can’t be in the game, which is why a bunch of scrubs that used to be in the UFC are littered throughout the title instead.

Randy’s mere presence in the game probably paid him a bazillion dollars (though sources won’t confirm the number “bazillion” to be exact) and his likeness on the XBOX 360 is going to be a big move that helps turn this in to a marketable franchise.

Most critics are scoring the game in the same 8-out-of-10 region as UFC 2010: Undisputed, though most user scores are slightly below. Still, you can count on Electronic Arts using their vast array of resources to improve on this title. Fans will have to choose between better game play or better fighter selection in the coming years.

And if fans want to see Emelianenko fight Couture, they’ll have to use EA Sports MMA. Or they could watch the two guys fight each other on an big screen by watching the video. Either way, I’ve got better things to do in my spare time then fight a mixed martial arts game. That includes drinking beer, talking to women, playing sports in real life and – oh yeah – betting on UFC 121 this weekend