It’s well established that newly crowned bantamweight champion Julianna Pena will be heading into a rematch with long-time divisional queen Amanda Nunes next, but it seems that the two might serve as coaches on The Ultimate Fighter reality show first.
That’s the word according to Ariel Helwani, who claims the two are front-runners to land the team coach roles for the next season, and Pena, who is a former winner of the TUF show, has indicated that she’d be eager to be involved.
“A dream come true for me would be to coach The Ultimate Fighter and then go right into the rematch, so that’s a perfect-world scenario,” Pena told BT Sport recently, while suggesting the summer as her preferred choice as far as a date for her second Octagon showdown with Nunes. “I know we don’t live in a perfect world, but that’s what I would like. As long as I can get the rematch at whatever time, that’s what’s going to make me happiest.”
Pena shocked the world when she got the better of Nunes in their first title fight back in December, ending the Brazilian ace’s 12-fight unbeaten run after getting the better of the action on the feet before getting the fight to the mat and tapping her out by way of a rear-naked choke submission.
Dana white has since claimed that their inevitable rematch is now on course to be the biggest fight in women’s MMA history, and as such having them square off as opposing team coaches on TUF first will only help to build anticipation for a potential summer showdown.
