The Ultimate Fighter 33 announced featuring welterweights and flyweights

Yesterday at 07:00 PM

The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC's long-running reality television show competition, returns for its 33rd season.

Officials announced via a press release Friday that casting for TUF 33 is scheduled to run from Nov. 4 to Dec. 18, with producers and scouts on the lookout for fighters in the welterweight and flyweight divisions. Coaches for the upcoming season are yet to be determined, as is the date for the season premiere.

According to the release, "casting for TUF 33 will be remote with no physical tryouts" and decisions are expected to be made no later than January.

The most recent season of TUF saw flyweight stars Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko coaching teams comprised of middleweights and featherweights. American Ryan Loder won the middleweight tournament, while Brazil's Mairon Santos was the champion at 145 pounds.

Grasso and Shevchenko later met in a trilogy bout with Grasso's flyweight title on the line at UFC 306 this past September. Shevchenko won by unanimous decision to become a two-time UFC champion.

Premiering in 2005, TUF has often been credited by UFC CEO Dana White as having helped to bolster interest in the promotion, particularly the thrilling TUF 1 finale bout between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar, which is widely regarded as one of the most important fights in UFC history.

Other standouts to emerge from seasons of TUF include Nate Diaz, Michael Bisping, Tony Ferguson, T.J. Dillashaw, Robert Whittaker, Carla Esparza, Rose Namajunas, Julianna Peña, and many others, though the program has been supplanted somewhat by Dana White's Contender Series, which serves a similar purpose as a prospect showcase.