Ronda Rousey joins ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ fuels show’s comeback

Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White might not strike the public as an avid reader of Entertainment Weekly, but White has noticed this week’s issue.

The magazine declared his organization’s “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series on FX its No. 1 suggestion in its “The Must List,” this week.

White and FX officials have been thrilled by the ratings boost “TUF,” starring coaches and future light-heavyweight title combatants Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen, has received in its shift from Friday to Tuesday night.

The premiere “TUF” episode this season had 1.5-million-plus viewers, the most since the show’s move last year to FX from Spike TV. The most recent episode netted 1.3 million viewers -- second-best this season -- and each show has outperformed each show except the finale from the prior season.

And the “TUF” brand was lifted to another level this week with White announcing next season’s series will feature UFC women’s champion Ronda Rousey as a coach, in a house that for the first time will have both male and female fighters as occupants. The men and women will both be in the UFC’s 135-pound bantamweight division.

“It’s going to be very interesting,” White said of the Rousey “TUF,” which will begin filming in May and set up her next title shot in later 2013 against the winner of the April 13 Miesha Tate-Cat Zingano fight.

The Tate-Zingano winner will be Rousey’s opposing coach.

“The guys have always said the hardest thing about being in that house is being away from women,” White said. “Now they might be saying the hardest thing is living with women.”

White is basking in the renewed interest in “TUF,” which airs next on Tuesday with quarterfinal fights.

“This season has been so awesome for different variables -- the move to Tuesday, the coaches, the level of talent, bringing in families to watch the fights,” White said. “I like how,” Jones and Sonnen “have handled themselves as coaches. There’s been a little back and forth between them, but they did a great job finding us the next best guy.”

White said he anticipates a strong pay-per-view audience for Jones-Sonnen April 27 in Newark, N.J., after Rousey’s strong showing in her UFC debut last month at Honda Center and Saturday’s Georges St-Pierre-Nick Diaz welterweight title bout in Canada.

White said St-Pierre outdid Rousey’s pay-per-view sales, which were believed to be just shy of 500,000 buys, adding “GSP is a PPV monster,” in a text message.

In May, White said he could not deny heavyweight Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva a title shot at champion Cain Velasquez after the way Silva knocked out favored Alistair Overeem on Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas.

Velasquez dominated Silva in a meeting last year, however.

Meanwhile, after Diaz served a lengthy suspension for a marijuana positive test last year, White said he was flabbergasted to see boxer Mickey Bey Jr. receive just a $1,000 fine and three-month suspension by the Nevada State Athletic Commission Wednesday after producing a stunningly high 30/1 testosterone ratio sample following his impressive knockout victory in February.

“I’m not defending pot use -- it’s illegal, it’s in the rules and regulations that you can’t use it -- but the fact that they’d punish a guy more for marijuana than performance-enhancing drugs is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” White said.

Boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. was suspended for nine months and fined a whopping $900,000 after his positive marijuana result last year after losing to Sergio Martinez. Chavez had a prior drug-test failure for a diuretic in Nevada.

“No one’s ever going to put an incredible beating on someone by taking marijuana, but a 30/1 testosterone -- you’re not even human anymore,” White said.

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