Around The UFC: TUF 13 Coaches, Carwin at UFC 131, Pettis Vs Guida Planned

Added on Jan 12, 2011 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

The Ultimate Fighter 13 Coaches:

In a conference call for the upcoming UFC Fight For The Troops card, Dana White announced that Former Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar and Number 1 contender Junior Dos Santos will be the coaches on the 13^th season of The Ultimate Fighter. White said the decision made sense because of the injury of current champion Cain Velasquez. Velasquez is expected to go under the knife on Thursday for a shoulder injury, and won’t be back till the end of the year. White explained “We were sitting there working on this thing for such a long time, and at the press conferences everybody kept asking me I said ‘I’m behind the 8-ball, I should have this done already’ but so many things happened. The injury to the champ, Cain Velasquez, and now we’re looking at Junior Dos Santos who’s been waiting on this title shot and having to sit out and it made all the sense in the world once we knew how long Cain was going to be out.”

White also said that it wasn’t easy getting Brock to agree to the coaches position. Lesnar isn’t exactly the guy who likes to be in front of the camera. He said “Yeah it was, I’m already prepared for this mentally, and it’s going to be a tough season, I know it is. I deal with Brock in very short spurts. The guy fights two or three times a year, it’s always tough, so it’s going to be a very interesting six weeks of filming.”

Shane Carwin Fighting At UFC 131

Former interim heavyweight champion Shane Carwin is coming off of back surgery following his fight with now former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. We heard a few weeks ago that Carwin was back in training. The target date for his return is at UFC 131. He said in a blog on his site www.Shane-Carwin.com “So last week we got the call from Joe Silva asking if we would consider fighting Nelson at UFC 130. We accepted the match up and UFC Matchmaker Joe Silva said that it was 90% a go. The next day we were informed that they went a different direction for Nelson and that they want me to fight someone at UFC 131 in Vancouver. I have once again rapidly accepted the date. As of this blog no opponent has been mentioned.”

Pettis Vs. Guida

Anthony Pettis (13-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) soon will make his UFC debut against standout Clay Guida (28-11 MMA, 8-5 UFC), according to UFC president Dana White. Pettis was supposed to fight the winner of Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard, but they fought to a split draw at UFC 125 and will now fight again. Pettis says he doesn’t want to sit around waiting, and knows with a win he will get the next shot. His trainer Duke Roufus said “It’s unfortunate he doesn’t get the title shot, but Anthony is confident, and we as a team are confident in his skills. He’s got a golden opportunity even with this situation. We’re very fortunate that he’s been put in the contender position, let alone a shot at the title. He’s going to take advantage of the opportunity and run with it.”