MONTREAL — Montreal’s Georges St-Pierre will be one of the coaches of the next season of The Ultimate Fighter and will be opposite the winner of Saturday’s No. 1 welterweight contender bout between American Josh Koscheck and England’s Paul Daley at UFC 113: Machida vs. Shogun 2 in Montreal.
UFC president Dana White made the official announcement at the end of a question-and-answer for UFC Fight Club members Friday afternoon.
"This is the perfect place to announce it," said White, who admitted having the UFC welterweight champion, and extremely popular Canadian fighter, as a coach was long overdue. St-Pierre was a trainer on Season 4 of the show, where fellow Quebecer Patrick Cote was a contestant.
The announcement drew huge cheers from a crowd that filled a handful of sections in the Bell Centre for the Q&A with UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar.
"I’m very happy to be a coach," St-Pierre said. "I’ll be watching tomorrow’s fight very carefully."
White already announced Thursday that the Koscheck-Daley winner will take on St-Pierre for the belt, a match that will now take place at the end of TUF 12, which will involve lightweight and light-heavyweight contestants.
The cast will be announced this summer while filming will begin next month. The new season premieres on Sept. 15.
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Earlier in the week Daley said he’d make a great coach. Should he win, he would become the second Englishman to coach a season of the reality show, joining Michael Bisping, who coached in the ninth season. Bisping was opposite Dan Henderson for the The Ultimate Fighter: U.S. vs. U.K. and a grudge developed between the two during the series.
The chance to be a coach on the show adds yet another storyline to Saturday’s co-main event matchup, which has already seen Daley employ some tricks to try to get under the skin of Koscheck.
Daley started an internet thread inviting people into a Photoshop contest involving an image of Koscheck. He said he received over 40,000 entries and he revealed the winner at Thursday’s press conference — a picture of famous painter Bob Ross (as it appears on his Wikipedia page) with Koscheck’s face superimposed on it, playing off the late Ross’s signature afro with Koscheck’s curly, but less accentuated hairstyle.
Koscheck wasn’t about to let it unnerve him.
"I didn’t see the Photoshop thing," Koscheck said. "I don’t care about that. I’m focused on winning."
Koscheck even said he would pass up an offer to see his hometown Pittsburgh Penguins live in action Thursday night against the Montreal Canadiens.
"I have to worry about the fight," added Koscheck, who believes the edge is all on his side come fight time. "I think I have a lot of ways to finish this fight, whereas he only has one way. I’ve got to take advantage right off the get-go."
Daley said he doesn’t have any ill feelings toward Koscheck and that the contest was for fun.
NOTES: All fighters made weight Friday. The loudest cheers from the fans were for London, Ont.’s Sam Stout, Patrick Cote of Quebec City and Kimbo Slice, who weighed in at 225 — with gold necklace still around his neck — for his heavyweight tilt against Matt Mitrione (253). In the main event matchup, light-heavyweight challenger Mauricio (Shogun) Rua was first to the scale and was cheered across the board before weighing in on the number at 205 pounds. Champion Lyoto (The Dragon) Machida, who hit the scale at 204, received a mixture of boos and cheers throughout his appearance on the stage. Their bout is a rematch of a previous title bout which Machida won by unanimous decision, but many fans and media felt Rua should have gotten the judges’ nod.
