The UFC is currently in the planning stages for their 30th season of The Ultimate Fighter. The promotion is trying to nail down coaches for the upcoming season. However, up until now, they’ve had difficulty finalizing coaches.
Originally, the UFC was looking at potentially having Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal coach. However, that didn’t come together and those two are now booked to face off against each other in March.
Back at UFC 269, we saw one of the greatest upsets we’ve ever seen in MMA. Julianna Pena (11-4) shocked the world when she stopped the consensus greatest of all time, Amanda Nunes (21-5) to become the bantamweight champion of the UFC.
Immediately, talks began involving the rematch. Last week, Pena hinted that she wanted to do the rematch sometime in the mid to late summer. Many raised their eyebrows at that considering the layoff time.
Now, there appears to be more clarity in those comments. Ariel Helwani reported last night that it looks like Pena and Nunes will be the coaches for the UFC’s 30th season of The Ultimate Fighter.
UFC’s Ultimate Fighter
The taping of the show would take place in the spring and the two would face off at the end of the show in their rematch for the UFC bantamweight championship. Likely would be in August if I was to guess the timing.
This would be a full-circle moment for Julianna Pena. We were all first introduced to Pena on The Ultimate Fighter. She was apart of the first group of female fighters to ever participate in the show and she won the whole thing.
Up until last year, Pena had a solid career in the UFC, but she was never looked at as one of the very best. Now, she’s the one that’s laughing at anyone who doubted her after shocking the world and beating Amanda Nunes.
These two have a little personal animosity towards each other and it should make for a very interesting season of TUF. While the deal isn’t finalized yet, it’s definitely trending in that direction.