The Ultimate Fighter returns with Season 32 featuring 16 featherweights and middleweights who will be coached by the current and former UFC flyweight champion, Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko.
Grasso and Shevchenko will both be coaching on the series for the first time, making up the fourth season to be headed by two female fighters.
The likes of Ronda Rousey, Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Amanda Nunes have all coached as champions in the past with Grasso now set to join their ranks.
Both coaches met back at Noche UFC in September last year where they fought to a controversial draw, setting up a third fight for later on this year.
They will both be helping 16 hungry fighters that all have hopes of winning the series to earn themselves a substantial contract with the MMA leader.
In recent interviews with MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn ahead of the debut episode, Grasso and Shevchenko spoke about what it was like to feature as coaches in the TUF gym.
The current champion spoke about the anticipation from the Mexican fans to watch the show after she was able to break some new ground for MMA in the country.
“It’s the first time that a Mexican team was able to do that, 100% Mexican team, so it’s huge for me, my uncle, my coaches, for all my team to be a part of this because it was really, really cool. I mean we had guys from all over the world.”
“I thought it was going to be girls honestly at the beginning but then I knew it was 45’ and middleweight boys so I was like okay, how am I going to teach these huge guys but it was a really cool, nice experience.” Grasso said. “I like to coach and help here in my gym in Guadalajara with my teammates and that so I have experience on how to deal with guys, bigger guys, and that so I also have the better example from my coaches and I think we did great.”
Shevchenko spoke about how it was difficult to prepare for what to expect but she was pleasantly surprised. “You don’t know who’s going to be there and what kind of personality but I can say exactly that all 16 fighters, they were amazing. They were like truly martial artists and you know, it’s like age range from 21 to 33 years.”
“The Bullet” also spoke about how one of her main focuses in the training sessions was to make the fighters better and giving them a valuable experience, instead of just focusing on the next fight in the tournament.
“The training is going to serve them for the future. The base what they have right now but also like adding knowledge, adding experience, adding more weapons to their game. It’s like 16 people, not everyone got result what they wanted. There was losses, there was winning, there was like everything but I can say exactly like in my team, the training that they had during all these two months, they have so much potential and if it’s not this time but they going to be in UFC and they’re going to be in the top level in the future because it’s gonna serve them for the future.
Both women said that there was no tension between them during the filming process as they approached it as professionals with Shevcheko stating that their relationship actually improved after seeing eye-to-eye on their approach to the sport.
