4 best coaches in Ultimate Fighter history

#3 Jens Pulver (Season 5)

Jens Pulver was a popular and successful TUF coach due to his likeable nature

2007’s Season 5 of TUF featured two teams of Lightweights coached by rivals Jens Pulver and BJ Penn, and while Penn came out on top in their eventual fight – choking Pulver out in the first round – it was quite clear to anyone watching the show that ‘Lil Evil’ was the superior coach of the two. As with Hughes and Serra though, it wasn’t that Penn was bad – more that Pulver was brilliant in the role.

Interestingly, Pulver had it hard from the beginning of the season. In an odd move, Penn attempted to game the system while picking teams by asking contestants to raise a hand if they “didn’t want anything to do with Pulver” – and in the confusion, plenty did. Eventually Dana White forced the pair to use a regular picking system – but in a nice twist, Pulver simply didn’t hold anything against any of his fighters who’d wanted to be on Penn’s team.

It was Pulver’s affable nature that made him such a great coach, essentially. Not only did he help fighters like Corey Hill – an inexperienced fighter with no professional bouts – improve greatly, but he knew exactly how to treat his charges too, dealing with an accusation of overtraining from Brandon Melendez in calm fashion and immediately getting the fighter back onside, and knowing when to come down hard on his weakest fighter, Wayne Weems, but also when to praise him.

Pulver even took on an extra fighter – Andy Wang – when Penn booted him off his own team, and immediately took him under his wing. He also refused to hold anything against Nate Diaz when he decided to train with Penn for a session. In the end, the season came down to Diaz against Manny Gamburyan, in a match of two Pulver-coached fighters – hardly surprising given the stellar job he’d done as a coach.