EA Sports UFC is deep in development for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but researching mixed-martial arts has some of the developers at EA Vancouver entering and even winning competitions in the sport.

I spoke with Brian Hayes, Creative Director on EA Sports UFC, last week while getting first hands-on with the game, learning its mechanics and getting a grasp at how EA plans on revitalizing digital blood sport. I learned that the team at EA Vancouver certainly won't back down from any challengers.

In introducing the submission mechanics in EA Sports UFC, Hayes related that the team's "core group of gameplay engineers, animators, and designers have been training in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu." With the deal between EA and UFC announced at E3 in 2012, Hayes says that the team hired a local MMA trainer to teach Jiu Jitsu.

I was going for about two months and then one of the animators who is really good, he had experience before, he really hurt my arm in an arm bar because, well it was my fault, I did the wrong thing. That group has been going at it to the point where four of the guys on our development team actually entered the Vancouver Brazillian Jiu Jitsu competition and the guy that arm-barred me won his division and the open-weight category for his belt.

Hayes seemed proud of how deeply his team has immersed themselves in the brutal ballet of mixed-martial arts, even saying "I would venture to say that if our development team were to rumble with any other developer in the world, our team would win."

"Set up a rumble between us and the Titanfall team," Hayes said, "we will have a street rumble with any other team and I'm pretty sure we have some killers on our team that will help us win."

Don't forget to check out the full EA Sports UFC roster as its revealed.