Michael Bisping has revealed nixed plans for him to coach the upcoming season of “The Ultimate Fighter” (TUF).
Eddie Alvarez and Justin Gaethje are set to be the next opposing coaches on TUF, but that wasn’t the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) original plan. Reigning middleweight champion Bisping claims he was offered a spot to coach his team opposite of either Yoel Romero or Robert Whittaker.
Whittaker ended up taking interim gold and he’s set to fight “The Count” in a unification title bout. On his “Believe You Me” podcast. Bisping discussed the talks he had with UFC President Dana White (via Flo Combat):
“Dana was pushing me for an answer on whether or not I would coach “The Ultimate Fighter” against the winner of Whittaker and Romero. And I wasn’t giving him an answer because I was still waiting to find out whether the GSP fight was going to come off. And if I’ve agreed to do The Ultimate Fighter, then that [puts] the GSP thing out the window. So that’s why I was playing a little bit of stalling.”
He then went on to say that Whittaker and the promotion couldn’t reach a deal to have him on TUF.
“Yoel Romero was all in. He agreed to do it. Yoel had agreed. But they hadn’t asked Whittaker. And Dana even said to me, he said, ‘Don’t mention anything yet because we haven’t asked Whittaker about it.’ Long story short, I speak to Dana Sunday, Whittaker, fair play, he wanted X, Y, and Z to do the show, and the UFC weren’t prepared to give it to him. And the next minute, Justin Gaethje and Eddie Alvarez are the coaches. And I didn’t even get a phone call!”
