Ink Master season 9: Matt O’Baugh, Katie McGowan, Christian Buckingham returning

Earlier this week, we heard for the first time that Cleen Rock One would be returning for his third run at the Ink Master title (to be fair though, this season is Master Shop, so if his team wins that title, he may need to come back a fourth time for the individual Ink Master crown), where he will be joined by another former contestant in Aaron Is.

Now, we’ve also learned about a number of other notable tattoo artists from past seasons coming back as a result of the twist. Take a look below.

Matt O’Baugh and Katie McGowan – These two artists were previously a part of Ink Master: Masters vs. Apprentices together, so it should be fun to see them working together as a team this time around. For the record, we consider Matt to be one of the best tattooers to never win this show and with someone as skilled as Katie by his side, these two are unstoppable since we have seen how well they work together on this show already. Matt and Katie are representing Black Cobra Tattoos in Sherwood, Arkansas.

Picasso Dular and Lalo Yunda – After lasting just four episodes in season 7, Picasso will have a shot at redemption this time. He is representing House of Monkey in Brooklyn. Lalo, meanwhile, is from all the way back in season 2 giving us another Ink Master shop team made up of two former contestants.

Christian Buckingham and Noelin Wheeler – Christian came very close to winning season 7 (he’s really an incredible artist), and the idea of him and Cleen competing against each other once again should prove interesting. He is representing Basilica Tattoos in Las Vegas. (Ironically, Cleen is also representing his own Las Vegas shop.) Wheeler is the only one of the artists mentioned here so far to have not have been on the show before.

Richard “Made Rich” Parker and Derrick “DTATSTAR” Verley – Made Rich was a part of the third season of the show, where he made it through to episode 6. He and DTATSTAR (a newcomer to the series) are representing Think Before You Ink out of Queens.

As you can tell, this is probably going to end up being one of the more competitive seasons of the show to date. While you can often draw assumptions on how certain artists are going to do based on past seasons, it’s a little harder to do that here since you don’t quite know how they’ll fare with their partners. That adds a whole new layer to the competition, since if there are two great artists who aren’t on the same page, they probably won’t end up winning.

What do you think about some of these returning Ink Master artists, and who are you rooting for of the group? Share in the comments!

Meanwhile, head over to the link here in the event you want to see our most-recent Ink Master exit interview. (Photo: Spike.)