Dana White confirms The Ultimate Fighter 29 will start filming soon, coaches TBD

UFC president Dana White confirmed that The Ultimate Fighter 29 will commence filming soon, but the coaches are still to be determined.

White has been teasing the return of TUF for the last several months, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed its start. It now appears that the UFC is ready to get filming again. Speaking to the media following Tuesday’s edition of the Contender Series, White confirmed that the UFC plans on starting filming for TUF 29 in Las Vegas in November.

“The Ultimate Fighter’s coming back, too. I start filming that when I come back from Fight Island (in November),” Dana White said.

The UFC president also said that he hasn’t decided on who the coaches will be on the show yet, noting the matchmakers are meeting this week in Vegas to discuss that.

“No, not yet. The first TUF meeting is this week. Yeah, we have a meeting this week and start putting all that stuff together,” White said, noting that the new season of TUF would follow the traditional formula of following 16 fighters duke it out in the TUF house.

Rumors abounded for months that Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa would be named coaches, but ultimately the UFC chose to match them up for the middleweight title at UFC 253. The winner of that fight could potentially be in play to coach TUF, but at this point, all options are on the table.

Just based on who is available, some other options to be coaches could be Kamaru Usman vs. Gilbert Burns, Petr Yan vs. Aljamain Sterling, or even Jorge Masvidal vs. Nate Diaz. At this point, all options are on the table for the next coaches. There could even be the possibility the UFC could bring in two legends to coach the next season, too.

Who do you want to see Dana White select as coaches of The Ultimate Fighter 29?