Between the American version of the show and international variants, The Ultimate Fighter has had over 20 seasons. In that time, we have seen a plethora of coaches give their time and effort to their teams in an attempt to help build future champions of the world.
The show has seen its fair share of excellent coaches. A couple that come straight to mind are Chuck Liddell, Rashad Evans and Chael Sonnen, all of whom were great leaders and teachers of the sport.
That said, there has also been some awful coaches on the show. These men were not very successful when it came to the scoreboard and generally were a disservice to the fighters they guided.
So who are these coaches that were the worst of the bunch? Here are the three men who were the worst in the history of the show.
Rampage Jackson
You’d think after his first lackluster coaching stint on TUF that the UFC would pick up that Rampage Jackson wasn’t exactly Greg Jackson in terms of coaching. Nope, he was given a second season to coach, likely because of his rivalry with Rashad Evans, which I must admit was highly entertaining.
Jackson is likely the worst coach in the history of the show. In two seasons coaching, he went 3-9 against Forrest Griffin-coached fighters (season 7) and 2-8 against Rashad Evans-coached fighters (season 10).
Furthermore, his general demeanor on the show proved that he was more into goofing around and leaving things up to his assistant coaches, rather than passing on his high-level knowledge to his up-and-coming fighters.
This was especially the case on season 10, where he was more worried about pranks and jawing with Evans than putting in serious work with his guys. He even admitted on the show that he was not a coach, which was the reason why he brought assistants like Tiki Ghosn and Tom Blackledge.
Add the fact that he would not check on his fighters after they lost and his overall lack of seriousness in his coveted role, and Jackson will go down in history as the worst coach in the history of the show.
Ken Shamrock
Speaking of guys who were more worried about the other coach than their own team, Ken Shamrock finishes a close second behind Jackson in terms of the worst coach in show history. That comes mostly because he was consumed with rival Tito Ortiz and not making sure he put his full attention on his fighters.
Shamrock went 3-10 against Ortiz’s guys, and the only reason he had two fighters in the semifinals of the light heavyweight bracket was because Noah Inhofer left the show for personal reasons, and Matt Hamill was too injured to fight in the semifinals.
In that time, Shamrock was constantly bickering with Ortiz and performing the “hold me back, bro” confrontations where he threatened Ortiz, but nothing came of it.
Not only that, but he oftentimes did not make the fighters work hard and gave them days off from the gym. Hard to imagine, given the limited time the fighters have on the show to get in the gym and learn new things from the legend.
Shamrock was not successful and clearly not interested in his coaching duties.
Josh Koscheck
An under-the-radar worst coach in TUF history has to be Josh Koscheck. Sure, he’s not the first name to come to mind, but if you rewatch the season, you can see why he’s included here.
He was 3-8 against George St. Pierre’s squad, and the only reason he had three guys advance the opening round was because the wild card gave him two of his own fighters competing against one another. Though his attempts at coaching were more admirable than Shamrock’s and Jackson’s, he surely was in over his head here.
In looking at his squad, he certainly did not gauge the talent well. He was even tricked by GSP into selecting Marc Stevens with his first pick so that GSP could snag eventual finalist Michael Johnson with his first pick.
Not only that, but Koscheck was a bully who also was more into playing stupid, childish pranks on GSP. He came off as a jerk on multiple occasions, especially when he had a confrontation with a team medic on St. Pierre’s team.
All in all, Koscheck did not represent himself well on the 12th season of the long-running show.
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