Just last week, UFC president Dana White confirmed that Brazil would be the first country to produce an international edition of The Ultimate Fighter.
According to a new report, the show will bring with it a pair of top-level coaches, including the man that many believe to the best fighter in history.
Extra Globo, a major news outlet in Brazil, is reporting that Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort will coach the two teams in the series, which is set to begin in March 2012.
The newspaper is part of the massive Globo Organization. Its television arm recently struck a deal with the UFC to broadcast the promotion’s events and is also the future home of TUF in Brazil.
The UFC on Monday though said that coaches have yet to be chosen.
The upcoming edition of TUF: Brazil is likely to air in the US on FUEL under the terms of the UFC’s new deal with FOX-owned networks.
Meanwhile, the UFC is trying to finalize a next opponent for Silva. He had been expected to face Chael Sonnen on Super Bowl weekend, but with a welterweight title fight between Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz now penciled into that event, Silva-Sonnen may be moved to a different date on the calendar.
In US editions of TUF, opposing coaches have historically competed against each other at the end of the season, but given Silva’s recent first-round KO over Belfort, it seems likely that if those two are in fact coaches, the inaugural Brazilian edition of the show will not follow that custom.
White had been scheduled to meet with Silva’s representatives over the weekend, but he did not respond to a Monday morning MMA Fighting inquiry about whether that meeting had actually occurred.