For more than a month’s time, Edmond Tarverdyan will be firmly entrenched in Las Vegas.
He’ll be doing what he loves: Training fighters and cornering combatants. But it’s hardly going to be a vacation.
For the first time in the history of “The Ultimate Fighter” show, the opposing coaches will be women, with Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s bantamweight champion “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey opposing eventual title challenger Cat Zingano.
Right next to Rousey, as he has been throughout her meteoric professional MMA career, will be Tarverdyan.
“It’s all about being there for Ronda,” said Tarverdyan, who leads Rousey and a stable of other mixed-martial-arts fighters and boxers training at his Glendale Fighting Club gym. “[The show is] gonna be great, I know it’s gonna be good. The ratings will be high.
“It’s gonna build up a big fight.”
While the show will no doubt build up the impending and much-anticipated title tilt between Rousey and Zingano set for December with episodic anticipation, it will also do as it has for the past 17 seasons, featuring a tournament to crown the next Ultimate Fighter.