Chael Sonnen and Daniel Cormier won’t be fighting at the conclusion of The Ultimate Fighter 33, but you can bet they badly want bragging rights in their coaching matchup.
The season premiere of TUF 33 aired Tuesday and featured the familiar formula of two established stars—UFC Hall of Famers Cormier and Sonnen this time around—leading teams of octagon hopefuls. Comprising the 16-man cast this year are eight welterweights and eight flyweights representing 10 countries in total.
After a short evaluation period, Cormier won the coin toss to make the first pick and he went with recent LFA flyweight champion Eduardo Henrique from Brazil. For his first welterweight pick, Cormier chose another Brazilian, Rodrigo Sezinando, who currently fights out of Vancouver, Canada.
Sonnen’s first flyweight pick was former UFC fighter Joseph Morales (USA) and his first welterweight pick was Diego Bianchini (Brazil).
See how the team rosters ended up below.
Team Cormier
Flyweights
Eduardo Henrique (13-2), Brazil
Alibi Idiris (10-0), Kazakhstan
Imanol Rodriguez (5-0), Mexico
Tumelo Manyamala (6-1), South Africa
Welterweights
Rodrigo Sezinando (8-1), Brazil
Danil Donchenko (11-2), Ukraine
Jeff Creighton (11-3-1), USA
Alex Sanchez (15-3), Mexico
Team Sonnen
Flyweights
Joseph Morales (12-2), USA
Furkatbek Yokubov (13-4), Uzbekistan
Roybert Echeverria (10-2), Venezuela
Arshiyan Memon (7-0), India
Welterweights
Diego Bianchini (9-1), Brazil
Matt Dixon (11-1), USA
Richard Martins (9-1), Brazil
Andreeas Binder (10-1, 1 NC), Ireland
Sonnen commented that he felt Cormier made a mistake not picking Morales first overall, and he backed up that talk when it was his time to book the first matchup of the season. Targeting Cormier’s top pick, Sonnen pitted Morales against Henrique.
The move proved to be wise as Morales’ UFC experience and high-level grappling were too much for Henrique, a more striking-minded competitor. Though Henrique landed several good shots on the feet, Morales was able to take him down with over three minutes to work in Round 1. Morales aggressively took Henrique’s back and eventually locked in a fight-ending rear-naked choke to advance to the flyweight semifinals and give Coach Sonnen an early 1-0 lead over Cormier.
Morales wins in his first fight since February 2023. He previously competed in the UFC from 2017-2018, when he recorded a 1-2 record. In his UFC debut, he submitted Roberto Sanchez inside of a round, but then lost back-to-back fights to Deiveson Figueiredo and Eric Shelton. Prior to his recent hiatus, Morales was on a three-fight win streak.
With Cormier choosing to pick the first fighters over picking the first matchups, it was again Sonnen’s turn to book the opening welterweight bout of the season and he chose Richard Martins (Brazil) to face Team Cormier’s Danil Donchenko (Ukraine) on next week’s episode.
The Ultimate Fighter 33 airs live every Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
Unlike most editions of TUF, coaches Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen will not be fighting at the conclusion of the season as both are long retired.
The finalists of the TUF 33 welterweight and flyweight tournaments will compete for a six-figure UFC contract in the show’s live finale fights. A date for those bouts is yet to be announced.
Here are the quarterfinal results so far:
Joseph Morales def. Eduardo Henrique via first-round submission (rear-naked choke)
Advancing to semifinals: Morales
Eliminated: Henrique
