Before we had Justin Gaethje and Eddie Alvarez as The Ultimate Fighter season 26 coaches, we almost had Michael Bisping and Yoel Romero.

Speaking on his "Believe You Me" podcast on Tuesday, Bisping revealed advanced discussions to coach the Fox Sports 1 reality show.

"A few weeks ago, (UFC President) Dana White calls me," Bisping said. "Of course I was still trying to make the [Georges St-Pierre] fight happen, trying very hard. GSP's coach was speaking to me directly, and we were trying to make it happen. GSP even went out there and sent some tweets and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

"Dana was pushing me for an answer on whether or not I would coach The Ultimate Fighter against the winner of Whittaker and Romero. And I wasn't giving him an answer because I was still waiting to find out whether the GSP fight was going to come off. And if I've agreed to do The Ultimate Fighter, then that [puts] the GSP thing out the window. So that's why I was playing a little bit of stalling."

During International Fight Week earlier this month -- the week of UFC 213 in Las Vegas -- things heated up. With top middleweight contenders in Romero and Whittaker slated for main-event duties on the pay-per-view card, White took the opportunity to discuss a plan with Bisping.

"Anyway, at International Fight Week... I was there, me and Dana got talking," Bisping said. "I had some meetings with Dana and the main producer that makes the show. And we came to a deal. We sat down, we negotiated, we discussed some money and this and that. And I said, 'Yeah. All right.' We agreed to a deal. But the problem was -- this was on Saturday by the way -- he said, 'We start filming Tuesday.'

"So I'm like, 'Holy shit.' I'm in Vegas. I've been here all week. I got to get home Sunday morning, fly home, see my wife, say, 'Hey, babe. Hi. By the way, I'm going back to Vegas Tuesday. I'm going to be there six weeks. And that holiday to Hawaii that we got booked? Yeah, we're not going on that either.' I was kind of dreading that conversation. But, you know, they were going to pay me some money."

According to Bisping, one of the two main-event fighters, Romero, agreed to the plan ahead of time. Unfortunately for Romero, losing to Whittaker via decision meant losing the play.

"Yoel Romero was all in. He agreed to do it. Yoel had agreed," Bisping said. "But they hadn't asked Whittaker. And Dana even said to me, he said, 'Don't mention anything yet because we haven't asked Whittaker about it.'

"Long story short, I speak to Dana Sunday, Whittaker, fair play, he wanted X, Y, and Z to do the show, and the UFC weren't prepared to give it to him. And the next minute, Justin Gaethje and Eddie Alvarez are the coaches. And I didn't even get a phone call!"

And while Bisping felt slightly miffed he wasn't kept up to speed with the plan, Whittaker might have gotten an even colder shoulder.

"Dana told me that he [Whittaker] asked for X, Y, and Z," Bisping said. "And I said, 'Dana, what was your response.' And he said, 'Have a good flight back to Australia.'"

Listen to a full segment from this chat via Pop Sports & HQ on YouTube below (starts at 5:45):