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Best coaches in TUF history

Best coaches in TUF history - MMA News

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Best coaches in TUF history
by Mitch Ciccarelli

With The Ultimate Fighter season 12 set to premiere on Spike TV on September 15, Heavy MMA takes a look back at the top ten coaches in the series history.

Criteria will be based on a combination of overall team victories, positive influence on the careers of young fighters and pure coaching ability.

10. Randy Couture

9. Frank Mir

8. Jens Pulver

7. Forrest Griffin

6. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

5. Michael Bisping

4. Chuck Liddell

3. Matt Serra

The owner of Serra Jiu-Jitsu Academies in Long Island, NY, Serra has been instructing martial arts for years. The heavy handed BJJ black belt understands the importance of building his fighters up mentally to improve their physical skill sets. On season 6, Serra was an excellent motivator and mixed in with his natural ability to instruct and corner fighters he made for a phenomenal coach on the show. Rival coach Matt Hughes almost had a nervous breakdown after losing six straight fights to Team Serra.

2. Rashad Evans

Evans came closer to clean sweeping the opposing team than any other TUF coach before him. Team Rashad went 7-1 in the preliminary round over Team Rampage and that is due mostly to Evan’s superb guidance. Evans’ focused on the one area which is often neglected in MMA training camps—the mental game. Evans is an extremely confident athlete so it was only natural that he was able to rub off some of that poise onto his team. In addition, Evans won season 2 in the heavyweight division so from being in the situation before he was able to relate to the fighters on his team more so than “Rampage” was able to.

1. Tito Ortiz

On season 3 “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” opened eyes with his impressive coaching approach. In fact, after watching Ortiz coach on the reality series many of his haters were converted into fans. The former light heavyweight champion poured his heart and soul into his team. Unlike opposing coach and arch rival Ken Shamrock who seemed to care more about himself than being there for the young guys.

Ortiz wasn’t as successful in terms of team victories on season 11 but he still treated every fighter on his team as if they were his children. Despite losing a majority of the matchups to Chuck Liddell’s team, Ortiz never once gave up on his fighters. Love him or hate him, we may never see another TUF coach care for his team as much as “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” did.

Each coach had his own page, so if you want to go read about each coach, here's the link
Top 10 Coaches In Ultimate Fighter History | Heavy.com

Tito's a really great coach and really articulates work ethic and passion to his fighters and I appreciate his perspective. Evans is similar, but I think alot of that has to do with the Jackson guru style and personally, I was really impressed by Serra, but then again I'm a Gracie guy myself so WTF?

But how the fuck can Chuck Liddell be considered a top TUF coach considering how little he actually teaches and mentors, rather spends most of his time murmering and texting on his sidekick. I've never seen a fighter/coach LESS interested or engaged than Chuck and have never respected his style of training because there lacks a thorough groundgame focus. Honestly, I'd train with every other camp prior to wasting my time with Hackleman and the Pit and couldn't disrespect his training and coaching style anymore. Chuck isn't a top trainer.

The article isn't top trainer, it's top coaches, read the criteria, based on that, Chuck's teams got along (for the most part) especially on this last season, and out of the 3 weight classes he's coached, his team has won them all. I'd say the results speak for themselves.

HOW IS TITO #1? Yes, he was great on his first season, but look what he was up against, Shamrock was awful. And last season was pathetic, talked trash on his own guys, left the show and his team had to be notified by Dana before Tito ever told them, and on top of that, HIS TEAM LOST. I am confused.

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Originally Posted by SinnerTim (Post 753106)

Guh! Ok, I'll read the criteria, it says "positive influence on the careers of young fighters and pure coaching ability", so at what point does Chuck's complete detatchment to his team and overall aloof-ness not bring him down? At what point in any of Liddell's dealing with TUF does he ever, in any instance inspire, influence or purely coach his fighters to victory?

Seriously. Liddell spent all of the first season on his sidekick and the last season vs. Tito being too punchdrunk to say anything coherent and still, on his sidekick. He's a solid fighter, but he hasn't evolved in the last five years and since Dana stopped protecting him has gotten ruined and it bleeds through into his coachin, cuz btw his "coaching style" if you even can call it that involves alot of assistant coaches and bs from Hackleman while Chuck's off shooting Dancing With the Stars and probably just partying the nights away. Chuck lucks out with picking prosects with help of Wikipedia and Sherdog, but aside from that, he's a complete spacecaseflake on TUF. Honestly, show me an instant where Chuck looks even REMOTELY invested outside of the actual exhibition bout and I'll be shocked and I think this has more to do with Iceman fandom than the truth IMO. But heck.

Yeah Chuck seemed very disinterested last season....the only reason he was there was so he could fight Tito.....Chuck missed at least 2 of his fighters fights as well.

Tito #1 for me

Rampage or Shammy for worst????????

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Originally Posted by kickass32 (Post 753116)

Rampage bombed out twice so he wins that one lol

I have Tito at #1 also :)

I would go Serra then Big Nog then Jens Pulver myself. I thought they ran pretty good camps. But we only see a fraction of actually goes on so who really knows.

I'll just never forget Shammy bringing his team in and sitting them down to watch videos of his fights, classic. Check out the ego on that guy.

I have a hard time saying that any one of those "coaches" was better then the others.. I think a LOT of it had to do with who they brought in as assistant coaches. Forrest being my prime example. I mean, the man picked fights with a coin flip, but he got the right team together to train his guys to win whatever fights they had. Shamrock is the other end of the spectrum. He brought in a really poor selection for his assistants, and wound up pretty much handing the season to Tito.

Now, again, there are exceptions to every rule. Guys like randy are just made to coach others. I think Id listen to just about anything that man had to say, and be better off for it.

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Originally Posted by kickass32 (Post 753116)

It haaaaad to be Shamrock. I mean there were times were the team would just call him out on ridiculous drills and he'd have no answer at all. his response would be like "do it because I know more then you!". You can tell most the guys couldnt even stand him. At least Rampage got along with most the team haha