Prior to the cancellation of the November Strikeforce card, Fabricio Werdum was a rumored replacement for an injured Frank Mir against Daniel Cormier. 
However, the fight card was canceled and Werdum will now be a coach on “The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 2” against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.
Werdum (16-5-1) stated on Wednesday’s TUF Brazil 2 media conference call that he was willing to take a fight with Cormier on short notice to save the fight card.
“I wasn’t offered that fight and I went in the media and said I was willing to fight him to save the event and to go back to Strikeforce but it was a fight that was never offered,” Werdum said.
Since he was not offered the fight with Cormier, he decided to take the opportunity to coach TUF against Nogueira. The fight with Nogueira will be a rematch of their fight from Pride in 2006, which Werdum lost by unanimous decision. He feels that he is a different fighter now since that was only his 11th fight of his career.
“It’s obviously a great honor for me to fight Nogueria,” he said. “To have a chance to fight him again after seven years, I think I have evolved a lot in my game. Back then, I was pretty much just a jiu-jitsu fighter. I’ve worked a lot on my stand up and Nogueira has obviously evolved a lot to. It’s a great honor and my biggest goal is to fight for the title and I have to win this fight to be in title contention.”
The filming for this international season of the reality show will begin soon and the will air in Brazil in early 2013. After the conclusion of the reality show, Nogueira and Werdum will meet in June, which will be apart of a fight card to take place in Brazil.