During UFC 311 on Saturday night, the UFC broadcast team announced one of the sport’s most beloved sports, The Ultimate Fighter, which will have another unique twist for its 33rd season.
Typically, the coaches on The Ultimate Fighter end the season by fighting one another on a UFC card at a later date. That will almost certainly not be the case this time because both coaches are not active fighters.
Shortly after the first fight of the pay-per-view portion of UFC 311, former UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen joined the broadcast booth for the announcement from UFC play-by-play man Jon Anik that The Ultimate Fighter Season 33 would be coached by Sonnen and UFC analyst Daniel Cormier.
After the announcement, Cormier and Sonnen had some playful trash talk for one another in anticipation for the show’s new season.
“It’s about time that they bring the real MVP back to lay the smackdown on you,” said Cormier. “You are going down. It’s team good guys versus team bad guys. And the bad guys are going down Chael.”
“Daniel will find out like 51 other men before him why you should never piss off a gangster,” replied Sonnen.
The Good Guy vs The Bad Guy 👊@DC_MMA and @ChaelSonnen will coach Season 33 of #TUF! pic.twitter.com/x2Lo53ycx9
— UFC (@ufc) January 19, 2025
As Cormier alluded to with his good guy, bad guy analogy, these two UFC legends are quite familiar with one another due to their shared podcast on ESPN Radio, Good Guy/Bad Guy, which was rebranded this past April from the DC & RC Show with Cormier and Ryan Clark.
The move to have these two former fighters turned ESPN media personalities host the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter does bring an end to having active fighters as coaches of the team. But on paper, it does make sense in more ways than one.
First and foremost, the UFC and ESPN likely decided to bring some added attention to the Good Guy/Bad Guy podcast.
Both Sonnen and Cormier also have experience coaching The Ultimate Fighter before as well, with Sonnen coaching Season 17 against Jon Jones in 2013 while Cormier did so against Stipe Miocic in Season 27.
Clearly, both ESPN and the UFC want these two big personalities to be front and center of the longstanding show, which should make for an entertaining product when Season 33 kicks off on ESPN2 on May 27th.