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YouTube, UFC On the first episode of UFC 289 Embedded, Charles Oliveira ties his training partners in knots as he wraps camp in Sao Paulo, Beneil Dariush brings his pups to work at Kings MMA, two-division champion Amanda Nunes gets some ice cream with her wife and daughter, Irene Aldana trains with UFC flyweight champion Alexa Grasso, and more.

Getty Images via Zuffa LLC Conor McGregor’s return to coach The Ultimate Fighter 31 debuted with 294,000 average viewers for the one hour broadcast this past Tuesday night on ESPN. According to the Nielsen ratings system, TUF 31 finished at No. 11 overall on cable on Tuesday night, earning a .14 share in the coveted 18-to-49 year old demographic, which is the key sector when it comes to advertising on television. The show aired at 10 p.m. ET. The No. 1 program on Tuesday was The Real Housewives of New Jersey on Bravo with 1.176 million average viewers and a .34 share in the 18-to-49 year old demographic. Those numbers are down dramatically from the previous time McGregor appeared on The Ultimate Fighter, a Season 22 coaching spot on the long-running series opposite Urijah Faber. During that season, TUF 22 debuted with 622,000 average viewers with the broadcast on FOX Sports 1. While McGregor’s return alongside future opponent Michael Chandler didn’t produce those kinds of ratings, TUF 31 still trumped the last season that aired on cable after TUF 28 produced 186,000 average viewers for that debut back on FOX Sports 1 in 2018 with Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum as coaches. Both TUF 29 and TUF 30 aired exclusively on ESPN+, a subscription based service, which means no viewer numbers are released. The latest installment of The Ultimate Fighter was boosted from ESPN+ back to ESPN largely due to McGregor serving as one of the coaches as he plots his return to action following a devastating broken leg suffered in his previous appearance in the UFC in 2021. McGregor and Chandler are coaching two teams of bantamweights and lightweights with a mix of newcomers and UFC veterans in the cast. The remainder of the season will continue to air on Tuesday nights on ESPN at 10 p.m. ET.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images Ilir Latifi is the latest fighter to be removed from the UFC roster. The veteran heavyweight and light heavyweight completed his most recent contract this past May and has not been re-signed by the promotion. UFC officials confirmed the news to MMA Fighting on Monday. Obviously, Latifi could be re-signed in the future, but as of now he’s been removed from the roster. Latifi first joined the UFC back in 2013 when he accepted a short-notice fight against Gegard Mousasi after his teammate Alexander Gustafsson was forced off the card. He lost a unanimous decision, but remained with the UFC, picking up two wins in a row before falling to future light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz. He eventually made the move up to heavyweight in 2020, and after dropping a decision to Derrick Lewis, he bounced back with a pair of wins over Tanner Boser and Aleksei Oleinik. Latifi then suffered a split decision loss to Rodrigo Nascimento at the recent UFC Vegas 73 event, which marked the final bout on his UFC deal. Latifi now becomes a free agent, with the ability to sign with any promotion now that he’s no longer on the UFC roster.

Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC Chris Weidman is officially back. The former middleweight champion has booked his return to the octagon with a fight expected against Brad Tavares at UFC 292 on Aug. 19 at the TD Garden Arena in Boston. Multiple people with knowledge of the promotion’s plans confirmed the news to MMA Fighting on Monday following an initial report from Newsday. The fight serves as Weidman’s first appearance in the UFC since a gruesome compound fracture and broken leg ended his fight against Uriah Hall in April 2021. The injury occurred after he threw a kick just seconds into the fight, and his leg snapped from the impact, sending him to the canvas writhing in pain. Weidman immediately had surgery to repair the damage done, and a rod was placed in his leg to stabilize the broken bones. He ultimately had to undergo another surgery to place a plate in his leg, but he continued to rehabilitate the injury with the intention of returning to fighting. In a recent appearance, Weidman fought back tears after participating in a grappling match in March on UFC Fight Pass. “These last two years have been the hardest years of my life,” he said afterward. “I don’t want to cry, I’m not going to cry, but I don’t know if you know this, but I snapped my leg in half in April 2021, and I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to compete again in anything, and so to able to come out here and put a show for you guys, win or lose, is truly a dream.” Now, Weidman looks to fight again in the cage. As for Tavares, the 35-year-old veteran looks to bounce back after suffering back-to-back losses in his most recent fights, including a first-round TKO to Bruno Silva in April. Overall, he has gone 2-2 in his previous four UFC fights, which included wins over Omari Akhmedov and Antonio Carlos Junior. The upcoming UFC 292 card is headlined by Weidman’s longtime friend and teammate Aljamain Sterling, who puts his bantamweight title on the line against Sean O’Malley.

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC Alex Pereira does not make enemies with former opponents, not even the ones who regularly spew obscenities. Pereira plans to host former octagon foe Sean Strickland in advance of the middleweight veteran’s UFC Vegas 76 headliner opposite Abusupiyan Magomedov. “I’m actually giving you breaking news right now,” Pereira said via translator on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “Sean Strickland’s coming to Connecticut next week for one week to train with me for his next fight. I’m going to learn English with Sean Strickland.” The latter announcement is the stoic Pereira’s joke about Strickland’s largely toxic presence online. The 32-year-old American, ranked No. 10 in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings at 185 pounds, is a walking NSFW feed on Twitter. To Pereira, who knocked him out cold in their UFC 276 meeting, he’s a bit nicer. “He’s a bit crazy, but he’s a nice guy,” Pereira said. “He talks against people, but he always treats me with respect.” Strickland previously reached out to Pereira for training help, but schedules kept them apart. Strickland has been identified as a future contender for middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, Pereira’s four-time opponent in kickboxing and MMA – and probably the closest thing he’s had to a rival. Pereira is in a good position to advise Strickland in the event of a title shot. Perhaps even better, he’s honest about the American’s chances. “It’s a hard fight,” Pereira said. “Honestly speaking, anyone can go over there and swing something and happen to knock the guy out. But on our way to progress, winning round-by-round and dominating the class right now, I think it is very hard for anybody to do right now.” Pereira welcomed a trilogy MMA fight with Adesanya, whom he knocked out at UFC 281 before returning the title at UFC 287 in a rematch. Instead, he announced his move up to the light heavyweight division, booking a fight against ex-light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz at UFC 291. The shift in direction isn’t keeping him up at night. “No, I move on from here,” Pereira said. “I can’t keep holding grudges on that because, otherwise it would not benefit me on my next fight. So I gotta let it go. I thought, re-thought about everything that happened to study everything, and the fact that I beat him three times made me feel a little better about it. So let’s just move on to the next one.” Pereira’s easygoing attitude toward Adesanya could be seen this past week when the two ran into each other several times at an airport while going through security. He approached the middleweight champ with a pitch for some content to entertain MMA fans, and to his surprise, Adesanya was thinking the same thing. The “run-in” was about as wholesome as you can get for two former opponents who’ve traded hundreds of punches. Pereira still thinks they’ll fight again one day. “Absolutely,” he said. “I just took a break because he already made [middleweight] about 50 times, so I’m going to see how it goes in the next two, three fights. Maybe we fight at light heavyweight, maybe we’ll fight at middleweight. From now on, I want to let everybody know, I’m able to make [185 pounds] any time I want. But the way that I was making the weight over and over again in a short span of time, I needed a break so my body can perform better in the weight class.”