“The Ultimate Fighter” is back for a 30th season.
UFC women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Peña and women’s featherweight champion Amanda Nunes will coach teams comprised of four women’s flyweights and four men’s heavyweights, sources with knowledge of the show recently told MMA Junkie. MMA reporter Ariel Helwani first reported Peña and Nunes were the frontrunners to be coaches on the show.
Contestants and alternates already are in Las Vegas with medicals and COVID-19 testing underway. Filming is expected to begin mid-February. The season’s roster has not been publicly released.
During an appearance Friday on “Ellen“, Peña confirmed the coaching news and also told guest host Mario Lopez she’s expected to rematch Nunes following their coaching stints.
“I was the first (woman) to (win) on that show, ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ I won the whole season,” Peña said. “I’m going to now be giving back to these young fighters. I am going to be the coach on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ for this next season coming up. Amanda will be coaching alongside me. So it will be me and Amanda’s teams. It’ll be my team vs. Amanda’s team and then at the end of the season, we’re going to rematch.”
Pena (11-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) and Nunes (21-3, 14-3 UFC) are less than two months removed from their December showdown at UFC 269. A big underdog before the fight, Pena sent shockwaves through the MMA world when she finished Nunes with a second-round rear-naked choke. The win earned Pena the Submission of the Year and Upset of the Year awards from MMA Junkie for 2021.
“TUF 30” is the second season of the long-running reality series to run during the promotion’s ESPN era. The series went on a three-year hiatus that began in 2018. In 2021, “TUF 29” aired with coaches Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega. After the conclusion of the season, UFC president Dana White said the season “killed it” in viewership.
The series debuted in 2004 with a monumental inaugural season that included the likes of Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Chris Leben, Diego Sanchez and Kenny Florian, among others. Over the span of the past 18 years, the show has produced champions such as Rashad Evans, Michael Bisping, T.J. Dillashaw and Kamaru Usman, and also featured international spinoffs like “The Ultimate Fighter: Brasil” and “TUF: Smashes.”
