According to our sources, Electronic Arts will be going all out with their promotion of their upcoming MMA title at E3. As part of this aggressive strategy, partner Strikeforce will be hosting an event at the Nokia Theatre across from the LA Convention Center that hosts E3 on June 16th. While no one is yet officially confirming EA’s involvement in the event, it is thought that EA will be turning up the heat on the rival UFC title by giving out passes to the event. We would be surprised if most of the video gaming media isn’t at this event on the evening of June 16th.

The card, as well as the PPV for the event, has not been announced, but we suspect that the Strikeforce will be teamed with Showtime for the recording and televising of the event. We suspect that we will hear more specifics on this in the weeks leading up to E3. Whispers that we hear suggest that you will be able to see the bouts on Showtime.

The EA Sports MMA title will, of course, be facing stiff competition from the THQ UFC 2010 title. The UFC title (besides being better branded and having the more well known fighters) also has a one-year head start on EA in this title segment. While this one-year head start is being downplayed, as the EA MMA title uses a modified or specially adapted version of the Fight Night 4 engine, many suggest this gives EA an advantage over having to start from scratch.

Still, the THQ UFC 2011 title clearly has the advantage, with consumers and maybe even the media heading into this year; and EA will clearly have to draw attention from UFC 2011 to make sure that both the buying public as well as the media are paying attention to the EA MMA title. The bigger the splash and noise they make can do nothing more than to help grow the title prior to release, and this momentum will be necessary if EA is to make a dent into THQ’s market share with UFC 2011. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but it should be noted that EA has been very successful with sports titles in the past in coming from behind to dominate the segment in the end.