Sonnen recently cornered Covington in the octagon, and now Covington will help Sonnen train up his team on the upcoming 33rd installment of ‘TUF.’
The Ultimate Fighter returns later this year for its 33rd installment, and on the plus side the UFC is not tying up any top contenders to coach the past-its-prime series.
At UFC 311 it was revealed that Chael Sonnen and Daniel Cormier would coach two teams of flyweight and welterweight fighters. Both men are retired from competition, and both men have coached the show before: Cormier for TUF 2017 in 2018 opposite Stipe Miocic, and Sonnen for TUF 17 in 2013 alongside Jon Jones and TUF Brazil 3 in 2014 against Wanderlei Silva.
Sonnen knows he’s there to entertain, but he also makes sure his team gets the best training. In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, “The West Linn Gangster” shared his coaching staff for this new Ultimate Fighter season set to debut in May.
“The head coach will be Clayton Hires,” Sonnen said. “Clayton Hires is my coach, he’s my mentor. He is not my assistant ever. He will be the boss. I will have on the jersey: ‘Clayton’s Team.’ It will consist of me, it will consist of ‘Cowboy’ Steve. He’s going to do what generally Mike Dolce would do in terms of helping these guys with their weight, their nutrition, their strength and conditioning.
“I would never do an ‘Ultimate Fighter’ without bringing the greatest grappler, Vinny Magalhaes,” Sonnen continued. “The last man to beat Gordon Ryan I might add, and he beat Gordon easily. That’s just the truth. It was either 7-0 or 7-1. It was not even close. Vinny never got credit for that. Last human being to defeat Gordon Ryan.”
“And Colby Covington. Colby is going to to come in.”
It’s unclear whether Covington will be there for the entire show or whether he’s just going to drop in for an episode like Georges St-Pierre’s hard drinking, chain smoking kickboxing coach Jean-Charles Skarbowsky.
“Chaos” could probably use the stability after spending a year ‘on the couch’ healing from a bad foot injury. He blamed his last loss against Joaquin Buckley back in December on not having a camp or team, and here’s a ready-made team of young hungry welterweights for him. And according to Sonnen, Colby’s bad guy persona isn’t a thing in training.
“He has mentored and coached many people,” Sonnen said. “But Colby doesn’t want people knowing that he’s a nice guy, so I’m not going to ruin his gimmick. But he’s going to do a fantastic job.”