The two Connecticut casinos will serve as a battleground in a budding promotional war between the industry-leading Ultimate Fighting Championship and its nearest competitor, Bellator MMA, on Sept. 5. The UFC announced May 31 that it will venture to Foxwoods that night for the first time in its history, at the same time Viacom-owned Bellator presents a card at Mohegan Sun. The UFC’s announcement came four days after Bellator’s.

The shot across the bow has been the talk of the local MMA scene, as the UFC has a track record of directly taking on competitors and forcing industry players to take sides. It’s not just ticket buyers who will have to choose between UFC and Bellator. Referees and cut men, for instance, have to decide which event to work, and the media will have to decide which to cover.

The tact isn’t unprecedented. In July 2010, the UFC presented a card headlined by middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva moving up to 205 pounds for the first time on a cable television event designed to pull attention away from a pay-per-view that night by the short-lived Affliction promotion, which lasted only one more event. The UFC did that when Spike TV was its television partner, and Spike pulled the same tactic several times when UFC left the network for Fox in 2011.

Spokesmen for the UFC and Fox — which will televise the UFC’s Sept. 5 card on Fox Sports 1 — said the Foxwoods booking has nothing to do with Bellator. They said the television date was penciled in a year ago for a fight night because Fox Sports 1 has college sports obligations the next night, a Saturday, the night the UFC and Fox prefer to broadcast fights. A Fox spokesman said there are no plans to move the UFC on a more permanent basis to Friday nights — the night Bellator has run on Spike TV since September 2013.

The UFC said it has been in talks about coming to Foxwoods for six months, though a Foxwoods spokeswoman told the Herald the deal to host the Sept. 5 card wasn’t closed until May 30.

Of course, the UFC could have selected virtually any arena in the country for its Sept. 5 event, let alone one just 10 miles away from Mohegan, which has hosted more Bellator cards than any other venue in the organization’s six-year history. The theatre at Foxwoods that the UFC is utilizing is roughly half the size of Mohegan’s 10,000-seat arena, a curious choice for an organization more than capable of outdrawing Bellator at the gate.

The UFC ran four events at Mohegan Sun in 2002, 2003, and 2005, but stopped abruptly for reasons that are unclear. The organization’s mainstream popularity exploded in 2005, and more and more states, including Massachusetts, passed laws allowing its fights. Ever since then, the UFC has avoided shows on tribal land, which are run by sovereign athletic commissions. Mohegan Sun went on to establish ties with promotions that popped up to compete with the UFC, and works hand-in-glove with Bellator these days.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney questioned in a statement why “another MMA organization who rarely does Friday night events and who hasn’t held an event in Connecticut in a decade decided to do an event the same night, just a five minute drive from Mohegan at a small casino down the road.”

“If you’re watching MMA on TV,” Rebney said, “the innovative industry leader is Spike TV and if you’re going to go enjoy a world class event in Connecticut there’s only one place to go and that’s Mohegan Sun”.

It’s not clear what prompted the UFC’s decision to book Foxwoods for Sept. 5. It came shortly after news broke that Bellator eclipsed 100,000 orders in its first pay-per-view effort on May 17, a higher watermark than most predicted.

Tom Cantone, Mohegan Sun’s vice president of sports and entertainment, said he welcomes the UFC’s challenge, and expects the competitive nature of Sept. 5 to create heightened energy. He brushed aside any suggestion the event would be moved to avoid the UFC.

“We’re locked in,” Cantone said.

As it stands, Bellator plans to bring limited star power to the Sept. 5 card, thus far announcing a bout between charismatic but little-known Connecticut fighter Brennan “The Irish Bad Boy” Ward against grizzled MMA veteran James “The Sandman” Irvin (coincidentally, Irvin was the fighter the UFC tapped to face Anderson Silva in the aforementioned 2008 bout). A matchup between former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler and Patricio “Pitbull” Freire is rumored.

The UFC has yet to announce any of its fights for Foxwoods, though it has reached out to local favorite and all-action fighter Joe Lauzon about competing. It will be interesting to see what level of attraction the UFC thinks it will have to present to trump Bellator’s offering. The night will be a television ratings war, and Bellator’s Spike TV platform is more established and more highly-rated than Fox Sports 1.

Fists will be flying in the cage Sept. 5, but no one will be competing harder that night than the UFC and Bellator brass.