Mir and Nogueira Announced As “The Ultimate Fighter 8″ Coaches
Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir and current UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will be the coaches for the eighth installment of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series, Spike TV has announced.
The Ultimate Fighter 8 debuts on September 17th at 10pm ET on Spike TV and will feature lightweight (155-pound) and light heavyweight (205-pound) fighters.
Nogueira and Mir will face off in the main event of a to-be-announced UFC pay-per-view event for the interim heavyweight title.
Nogueira (31-4-1) defeated Heath Herring in his UFC debut in mid-2007 then claimed the UFC’s interim heavyweight belt with a victory over Tim Sylvia in the main event of UFC 81 in February. His only career losses have come at the hands of top ranked fighters Dan Henderson, Josh Barnett, and Fedor Emelianenko. A former PRIDE Heavyweight Champion, Nogueira has never been submitted or knocked out in professional MMA competition.
Mir (11-3) started his career with back-to-back wins then made his UFC debut at UFC 36, defeating Roberto Travern via armbar submission. He next won four of his next five bouts to earn a fight with Tim Sylvia for the vacant heavyweight title. Mir submitted Sylvia with a bone-breaking armbar in just 50-seconds to claim the heavyweight title. After undergoing major surgery to repair career-threatening injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident Mir returned to the UFC, sandwiching a win over Dan Christison between losses to Marcio Cruz and Brandon Vera. Mir returned to championship form in first-round submission wins over Antoni Hardonk at UFC 74 and Brock Lesnar at UFC 81.
Production of “The Ultimate Fighter 8″ will begin in May. The entire cast of the show is set to be officially revealed in early-September.
For more on The Ultimate Fighter 8 check out the MMAFrenzy.com rumors section.
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Sounds cool but he need more HW title. This mean they won’t fight till december.
So is Mir going to teach these guys how to have his wonderful cardio?
the heavyweight division is boring
The HW division is unfair compared to the other divisions.
Frank Mir does not deserve a title shot yet.
Antoni Hardonk and newcomer Brock Lesnar WOW !!!!!
Another year wait to see the HW title be defended…..UFC really needs to do sumthing different.
are you freaking kidding me???? mir???? he wins a fight and they think he is ready for another shot at ufc gold. he hasnt shown me nothing other than while getting punched in the head he can still nail and foot lock on a blue belt WHOA how impressive. i think that this is a horrible idea. he would probably make and excellent coach but i hope that tuf 8 doesnt follow past with coaches going for the title. anyone second that. now dont get me wrong Mir WAS a great fighter but i dont think he is ready for the belt again he needs to beat some more top contenders.
Ok, shoot me if you will but honestly who do you want to have them have Nog face? Everyone in the HW division has losses to people they shouldn’t. Werdum in my oppinion (and AA) are the only guys deserving of a title shot at this point and seeing how Werdum is set to face Brandon Vera and has a good shot at losing that fight they can’t announce HIM as the next guy to coach and fight for the title. And the prospect of having two good JJ guys fighting is appealing to me. Personally I think that Nog will beat Mir up pretty bad, but We’ll have to see. I think Mir deserves a shot at the title as much as any other fighter in the UFC as of right now.
I quite like the idea.
But doesn’t make sense to me why they are coaching light-weights to light-heavy-weights??
LHW is soo stacked!!
The heavyweight completley lacks depth…i think that would be really interesting to fill the show with a load of big guys. It’s strange normally the HW is the most popular moneymaker…i think Dana is missing a trick.
When I say normally I’m referring to boxing. Everyone wants to see to big dudes slug it out.
i agree with you brandon two bjj guys would make and interesting fight i wont dispute that they will put an excellent show on. my realy questions is who diserves the shot and whats up with coulture they shoule either strip his title or make him fight. its pretty hard to make a good HW just cause most guys I.E brandon vera could make 205 but chooses to be the small guy in the HW division will cut to make 205. its seems that there are just not enough HW out there and if they are that bug they go off and play football or something. I feel the guys at 205 might consider bulking up a bit and going for a much shorter road to a title.
Well im really not a fan of either selection…sure you should have the top heavy weights as coaches…but im thinking Dana should step back and look at who he has before making them coaches….he has nog…who can barely speak english…and then you dont really have a clear cut #2…sure…Mir beat the golden boy…but since he has been back, who has he beat?! No one.. Obviously the best choice is no longer in the UFC, Courture…Dana hit a homerun in the 1st season with him and Liddell as coaches… and ever since, they have been decent..
But really, there is no one else he can use other than Mir unless he waited until UFC 85 is over and says the winner of Werdum Vera is the coach.. which should be the best because if you think about it, the fight wont take place until Nov-Dec anyways, which is pletny of time for the winner of Werdum/Vera…Mir needs to fight a decent name like, as much as i hate to say it, heath hearring.. since he beat Kongo…then if he beats him, then MAYBE give him a shot at nog..
The HW division is pretty lame. The UFC should make a play to get Kimbo Slice…. must…control …. laughter. On a serious note, I agree that most guys can make 205 easily enough so there’s really no incentive to go heavier. I heard Forest walks around at like 245 which is bigger than alot of dudes like cro cop, fedor, randy. Dana should try to convince some of the guys to go heavier for a fight or two since apparently one or two is all it takes to get a title shot.
I didn’t think Nog was able to speak good english. How is that going to work?
He’ll just grunt and point
ok heres my problems wit this 1st off Nogs doesnt speak english that well 2 mir annoys the **** out of me durin WEC events and 3rd HWs just suck u either get a big KO or they hug it out against the cage for 3 rounds so y would u want the supersloath division coachin up and coming LW u wanna do a season of LW have huerta and kenflo coach them and do battle at the end of the season now thats a great season of the ultimate fighter wit a fight at the end of the season i actually care about
i wouldn’t want to be on nogs team his tatics are let the other guy beat on u till they get tired then choke them out haha and mir pays the ref to step in when he is getting beat on then goes to the floor like a **** an grab a sub win wow cant wait for this show zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sorry i fell asleep for a min there if these are the to best heavy weights in the ufc i’ll give over at least if we had herring that would bring a bit of personality to the show,
and what is gong on with randy now is he still the ufc champ or has he been stripped whats crack?
That one guy was right, UFC HW division is turning into boxings HW division, there’s not a lot there to watch. It sucks we’re prob gonna be waiting atleast 7 months for a title fight, where as there are only 5 belts in the UFC. A great option for coaches would’ve been Arlovski and Couture.
Nog speaks decent English. Not the best but definitely understandable. He spoke to the UFC fight club before UFC 82 in March.
mir almost beat nogiura so idk what evry1 is complaining about i would like to see the rematch
what are you smoking mike? Mir and Nog never faced each other…
yeah, that was Herring, that other white guy. Mike, you’re a brilliant one.
FRANK MIR!?!?!?!? But lets face it, how many heavyweights diserve a title shot??? I honestly think they should take a page out of PRIDE’s book and go with a tournament for the HW #1 contender that would make a much better ultimate fighter season, throw a bunch of big names in one house with some light weights as the coaches! Plus who wouldnt want to see tha big dumb fat ass silvia crying before his fights???
Mir is the only one really deserving in the thin division but I’m not a fan of them putting a division on hold again just for the TV show.
I like Mir but I don’t think he would have earned a shot in any other division but at heavyweight with his body of work. He looked good in his last two wins but the quality of competition comes into play and he submitted a UFC newcomer with little jiu jitsu practice. Though him withstanding the barrage was commendable the submission shouldn’t come as a surprise.
I think Lesnar challenges for the title soon enough. He’ll just need to be smart and not follow anyone to the ground and keep it standing for any change. We’ll see but I think the UFC wants him in ASAP in case he were to lose a couple of bouts. He has tons of potential and should be a solid fighter in the UFC.