The news comes courtesy of Keep Punching Blog at OCRegister.com:

The "UFC 103: Franklin vs. Belfort" pay-per-view card is going toe-to-toe with the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez HBO pay-per-view event on Sept. 19.

The UFC is known for its creative marketing and counter-programming tactics and it looks like the MMA giant has come up with a good plan to beef up awareness for UFC 103.

The UFC will air a two-hour telecast of the UFC 103 undercard commercial free on Spike TV as a lead in for the UFC 103 main card on pay-per-view, according to a source at the UFC.

The undercard bouts are as follows:

Preliminary Bouts:
- Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller
- Jim Miller vs. Steve Lopez
- Dan Lauzon vs. Rafaello Oliveira
- Paul Daley vs. Brian Foster
- Drew McFedries vs. Tomasz Drwal
- Jason Brilz  vs. Eliot Marshall
- Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Igor Pokrajac
- Robert Emerson vs. Rafael Dos Anjos

So we'll get two hours of COMMERCIAL free fights before the PPV begins?  Dun Dun Ta Da Dun!

HT: Bloodyelbow

[Note by Kelvin Hunt, 08/21/09 3:07 PM EDT ]via f4wonline.com:

UFC and Spike TV will be officially announcing later today a one-hour commercial free special showing live undercard matches from UFC 103.

The first time airing live undercad matches of a PPV is to combat the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez match from Las Vegas that is also on PPV against the UFC show, headlined by Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort.

The special will be one hour, not two as is being reported in some places, and will be based around TUF 8 winner Efrain Escudero against Cole Miller.  The other match scheduled is Drew McFedries vs. Tomasz Drwal. 

BOO.  However, at least we get to see two fights instead of none.  Also, the McFedries/Drwal is a for sure KO within the first round, so we might actually get to see 3 fights or so.