For the longest time, the formula for The Ultimate Fighter has been fairly simple as far as who winds up as the coaches. The UFC chooses two fighters who can meet at the end of the season for a pay-per-view bout that makes sense in their division.
Duri…
For the longest time, the formula for The Ultimate Fighter has been fairly simple as far as who winds up as the coaches. The UFC chooses two fighters who can meet at the end of the season for a pay-per-view bout that makes sense in their division.
During the show, they coach opposite each other toward developing a rivalry that serves as a preamble to their eventual clash. Along the way, a group of new fighters undergo the high-level training that is needed to compete in the UFC.
This formula has worked for countless seasons because it is simple. More often than not, everyone is pointed in the same direction and working toward the same goal.
But throughout it all, it has always seemed, at least to me, that the sense of a real MMA-style camp has been absent. Some fighters find the mantle of head coach puts them above the men who, under all normal circumstances, are their head coaches at home.
Has this been a detriment? Probably not; these fighters usually use what has always worked for them, as the blueprints for training are passed from hand to hand.
Still, I have often wondered what a season of TUF would look like if “real” coaches and their teams were used. The contestants would be pulled into a true MMA camp alongside current UFC fighters who go through it all, right beside them, all answering to one leader.
In the spirit of exploration, I give you six men who would be great coaches for The Ultimate Fighter, with a specific idea as to their pairings.
On Saturday, the UFC will crown two more winners of its reality show, The Ultimate Fighter.
Season 18 will reach its conclusion over the weekend on a fight card headlined by former TUF winner Nate Diaz and TUF contest…
On Saturday, the UFC will crown two more winners of its reality show, The Ultimate Fighter.
Season 18 will reach its conclusion over the weekend on a fight card headlined by former TUFwinner Nate Diaz and TUFcontestant Gray Maynard. In the main event, the slumping top-10 lightweights will battle to return to the win column.
Finalists in the first ever female TUF competition include Julianna Pena and Jessica Rakoczy. History will be made when one has their hand raised on Saturday. In the men’s bantamweight final, Chris Holdsworth will meet David Grant.
While all women participants on TUF 18 are expected to get another shot inside the Octagon, Holdsworth and Grant will be the only male representatives from the season.
At the conclusion of the TUF 18 finale, several fighters will join UFC president Dana White for a post-fight press conference, which can be viewed live on the above video player.
Below is the entire TUF 18 finale fight card.
TUF 18 Finale Main Card (10 p.m. EST on Fox Sports 1)
Gray Maynard vs. Nate Diaz
Julianna Pena vs. Jessica Rakoczy
Chris Holdsworth vs. David Grant
Jessamyn Duke vs. Margaret Morgan
Roxanne Modafferi vs. Raquel Pennington
TUF 18 Finale Fox Sports 1 Prelims (8 p.m EST on Fox Sports 1)
AkiraCorassani vs. Maximo Blanco
Rani Yahya vs. Tom Niinimaki
Jared Rosholt vs. Walt Harris
Sean Spencer vs. Drew Dober
TUF 18 FinaleOnline Prelims (7:30 p.m EST on UFC.com)
Check out the full TUF 18 Finale lineup after the jump, and come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow night at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT for our liveblog of the main card.
(Jessica Rakoczy vs. Raquel Pennington full fight video, via TheUltimateFighterFX)
Check out the full TUF 18 Finale lineup after the jump, and come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow night at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT for our liveblog of the main card.
FOX Sports 1 Main Card (10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT)
Gray Maynard vs. Nate Diaz
Julianna Pena vs. Jessica Rakoczy
Chris Holdsworth vs. David Grant
Jessamyn Duke vs. Peggy Morgan
Roxanne Modafferi vs. Raquel Pennington
FOX Sports 1 Prelims (8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT)
Akira Corassini vs. Maximo Blanco
Rani Yahya vs. Tom Niinimaki
Jared Rosholt vs. Walt Harris
Sean Spencer vs. Drew Dober
Facebook Prelim (7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT)
Ryan Benoit vs. Joshua Sampo
The Ultimate Fighter will cap off its 18th season on Saturday, but to make things official, the 20 fighters competing on the card will have to step on the scale to make weight.
The trilogy fight between Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz will headline the card…
The Ultimate Fighter will cap off its 18th season on Saturday, but to make things official, the 20 fighters competing on the card will have to step on the scale to make weight.
The trilogy fight between Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz will headline the card, while the TUF finale bouts will see Team Rousey’s David Grant and Jessica Rakoczy go up against Team Tate’s Chris Holdsworth and Julianna Pena respectively.
Bleacher Report will have full coverage of the weigh-ins on Friday at 7 p.m. ET.
The Ultimate Fighter 18 Finale Card
Nate Diaz (156) vs. Gray Maynard (156)
Jessica Rakoczy (132) vs. Julianna Pena (134)
Chris Holdsworth (136) vs. Davey Grant (135)
Jessamyn Duke (135.5) vs. Peggy Morgan (136)
Roxanne Modafferi (134) vs. Raquel Pennington (135)
One of the finalists for season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter, Julianna Pena, is known for telling it how it is, and that didn’t change during an appearance on FOX Sports Live Wednesday.
When asked what “bugs her the most” about UFC bantamweight cham…
One of the finalists for season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter, Julianna Pena, is known for telling it how it is, and that didn’t change during an appearance on FOX Sports Live Wednesday.
When asked what “bugs her the most” about UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, “The Venezuelan Vixen” had a very straightforward answer.
“I think what bugs me the most would be just her all-around pretentious attitude, and I feel like she’s just a spoiled rich brat, and uh, that’s what I think.”
Pena was on upcoming title challenger Miesha Tate’s team during this season of TUF, which was apparently a good thing since “Rowdy” clearly rubbed the 24-year-old prospect the wrong way.
The submission ace earned her spot in the finals by tapping out heavy favorite Shayna Baszler with a rear-naked choke in the elimination round and then avenging a TKO loss to Sarah Moras in the semifinals, locking up a guillotine choke to end the bout.
Pena faces off against feared striker Jessica Rakoczy in the series finale Saturday night, who competes for a six-figure UFC contract after decisive victories over Roxanne Modafferi and Raquel Pennington.
This isn’t the first time Pena has put Rousey on blast, stating that Rousey doesn’t know how to lose gracefully after Episode 6 aired last month, per MMA Fighting.
TUF 18 was the first season of the reality show that featured female competitors and leaves the door open for an all female cast at some point in the future.
A trilogy bout between Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz headlines the TUF 18 Finale tomorrow night, which airs as a free broadcast on FOX Sports 1.
Is Pena’s recent bashing of Rousey a fair assessment of the dominant women’s champ, or is she just trying to create a little more hype around herself for her first official UFC fight?
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com.
There’s an old saying in sports: go big or go home.
This Saturday the UFC will go to the airwaves with The Ultimate Fighter 18 finale, an event headlined by Nate Diaz vs. Gray Maynard. An alright headliner for a UFC brand that has historically been wea…
There’s an old saying in sports: go big or go home.
This Saturday the UFC will go to the airwaves with The Ultimate Fighter 18 finale, an event headlined by Nate Diaz vs. Gray Maynard. An alright headliner for a UFC brand that has historically been weak in terms of star power, but a fight that doesn’t really do either.
It’s not big, but it’s not so small that it’s a sign of the UFC going home, either.
It’s a safe bet that we all like Diaz—watching him fight, if not listening to him talk—and Maynard is always at his best with something to prove, which applies against Diaz specifically and in his career overall at this point.
In the midst of a turkey-induced coma, possibly dabbing iodine on the wounds procured during Black Friday battles around America, it’s easy to see the appeal to the average fan of sitting down and watching a good ol‘ fashioned donneybrook.
With that in mind, a thought: Why not give them the biggest free donneybrook of the year live on FOX?
The UFC calendar has several can’t-miss events. Super Bowl weekend, Independence Day and New Year’s are all pay-per-view shows that are guaranteed to have the biggest headliners of the year.
What it doesn’t have yet is a date on free television that everyone knows to associate with the UFC in a similar fashion.
Make that Thanksgiving and it’s a guaranteed success.
The audience is already captive, as stated. FOX is airing football on Thursday and Sunday, leaving both Friday and Saturday night available for a big UFC show—something they put off in early December anyway, and could likely move ahead a few weeks.
If the promotion went big with a title fight that matters to the casual viewer the ratings would be insane.
Sure, there are potential hurdles.
The UFC would have to be willing to accept a loss on pay-per-view buys for one big show a year.
FOX would have to be receptive to the idea and be willing to push it as an event as big as, or bigger than, Thanksgiving football.
Advertisers would be expected to treat it as such when it came time to buy ad space.
Fans would have to be willing to stay home and commit to watching the event.
But if all those stars aligned just imagine what it would look like for the UFC.
Jon Jones headlining on Thanksgiving weekend, live and free on FOX.
Ronda Rousey at the top of the card, live and free on FOX.
Cain Velasquez, back on FOX for the first time since 2011, defending the heavyweight title live and free.
People would go crazy. Having a chance to showcase the top talent in the sport without the $60 price tag could do wonders. The undercard would almost be irrelevant with a proper big name headlining.
Perhaps all of this is a pipedream. Perhaps the FOX era is destined to be one of the flyweight title headliners and Benson Henderson fights.
But if it’s not, if the UFC is serious about the FOX partnership and about challenging the NFL as the premier sports organization in existence, what better place to stake a claim than on an NFL broadcast partner in the middle of the biggest NFL weekend on the calendar.
In the midst of all the turkey, shopping and football, there’s definitely room for the UFC. They just need to go big or go home.
There’s an old saying in sports: go big or go home.