Coach Ray Longo Details Keys to Aljamain Sterling's Win

Longo tells us why he knew the UFC rematch with Petr Yan would be 'totally different'

World UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling (Center) with Coach Ray Longo (R)

Coach Ray Longo had high expectations for his charge Aljamain Sterling on March 6, 2021, when the bantamweight challenger faced then champion Petr Yan at UFC 259. The circumstances leading up to the fight were not ideal to the famed coach of underdog champions, because Sterling had moved from New York to Las Vegas and didn’t end his training camp with his Long Island Serra/Longo crew, but Longo still knew Sterling had what it took to walk away with gold.

That isn’t to say that Longo liked his own coaching during the bout, or that he could have ever imagined exactly how Sterling would go on to become world champion that night after one of the most egregious fouls in recent MMA history and a controversial bout ending. “There was a bit of a disconnect because Aljo started his camp [for the first fight against Yan] here in New York, but then finished it in Vegas,” Longo tells us.

“It was the worst cornering I ever did, Matt [Serra] was out, and I was in the corner with three guys I didn’t know. It was a weird, weird, set-up.”

Still, Sterling got off to a good start against Yan, though he faded as the fight wore on. “People who watched that fight with no agenda realize that it was a competitive fight,” he continues.

“I would have liked to see him do what he did in the first round a little longer. He got a little frantic later on for no reason, but afterwards he insisted to me that because of mistakes he made with his nutrition, no matter what he did he wasn’t going to win that fight.”

Sterling did, in fact, win the fight and become champion after Yan inexplicably threw a knee at the American’s head when it was illegal to do so, dropping and likely concussing “The Funkmaster” and ending the fight, handing his title belt over via disqualification.

“People forget that Aljo had a lot of success in the first fight because of how it ended. I didn’t think the first fight was so bad. That fight was pretty close,” Longo insists.

“Why [Sterling] got the backlash [after Yan cheated] is beyond comprehension.

When Sterling told Longo after the first Yan fight that he felt horrible physically because of nutrition mistakes he’d made immediately before the bout, the coach took him at his word and it also gave him optimism for the rematch that the new champion immediately granted the cheating Yan. “I asked him if it was the truth that it was how he ate that messed him up and he swore to me that it was. That was key for me as a coach,” Longo explains.

“I believed him and so I said, ‘alright, let’s just go back to work and do the same things. If that was you at your worst, then the next fight will be a totally different fight.’”

Indeed it was, as not only did Yan control himself well enough not to get disqualified when the two rivals met earlier this month, but Sterling also swept the first three rounds, the second and third by sheer dominance, threatening to end the bout via choke for most of the middle of the bout. Sterling won the decision, retained his title but also truly earned the “undisputed” portion of it this time around.

Though Longo says that he and Team Sterling didn’t change up their technical or tactical approach before the rematch the champion did re-structure his schedule. This time around Sterling spent the last six weeks of his training camp back home in Long Island with the likes of Longo, Matt Serra, and teammates Merab Dvalishvili and Al Iaquinta, who joined Longo in the corner on fight night.

At the highest levels Longo says that every advantage can be a difference-maker. “Aljo has the talent to do whatever he wants in the fight no matter who is in his corner but every little edge counts,” he reasons.

“For me as a coach, it’s the last six weeks that has to be in place. I think he knew we wanted it that way…I think he realizes now that the support he got [in New York] is incredible. He got support from Al [Iaquinta], from Merab who will take a bullet for you and I think he proved that, and from Dennis Buzukja. They just help contribute to creating this energy and a fighter needs that. The love you get being surrounded by four or five guys, and Matt [Serra] was active in this camp, with everyone pulling for ya…when the fighter believes and the coaches all come together and believe, it’s a special thing.”

Longo always believed in Sterling, but he still waited to put up the championship banner with his name on it in the gym until more than a year after the fighter had become world champ in the first Yan fight. It wasn’t until a few weeks before the rematch with Yan that Longo hung the Sterling banner alongside the Matt Serra and Chris Weidman championship ones.

The coach says that he and Sterling never spoke about why he delayed, but once the banner went up it was an opportunity for Longo to tell his fighter exactly what he thought of him, heading into the rematch. “It was unspoken,” he recounts.

“Nobody wants to see a fight end the way their first one did. I didn’t even know the rules [requiring a disqualification after Yan’s foul], I didn’t give a shit. I wouldn’t have let Aljo fight after taking that fight. But when I put the banner up I told him ‘it’s been a long 13 months and you earned your right to be here. You’re the world champion.’”

A couple weeks after the rematch with Yan, Sterling is still the world champion. He graciously granted his cheating opponent (a man who had also taunted Sterling with racist insults before their first contest) a rematch, underwent dangerous neck surgery that the fighter says doctors told him would make it impossible for him to ever fight again, and still battled back from it all to beat Yan clearly in their second fight.

After beating Yan for a second time, Aljamain Sterling still gets hatred, mystifying Longo

All through that inspiring process Sterling was mocked by Yan, fans, even implicitly by his promotion the UFC who were quick to throw an “interim” belt back on Yan while Sterling recovered from neck surgery. As Sterling dominated Yan in the second and third rounds on the mat, the arena fans booed, just as they had during pre-event press events.

As the judges’ decision in favor of Sterling was being read in the cage, UFC President Dana White grimaced, shook his head in disagreement and disgust, and when it was read the arena fans continued to boo Sterling. The fighter’s coach is shocked by the way Sterling has been treated and agrees that no small part of it has to be related to prejudice against the outspoken and proud Black man of Jamaican descent.

“People became obsessed with the way the first fight ended, and got mad at Aljo instead of the guy who cheated, which I can’t comprehend. All that might have backfired because people were so obsessed with the ending of the first fight that they convinced themselves Aljo didn’t do anything well in the fight and so of course he couldn’t win the rematch,” Longo details.

“You can’t combat the hatred. If you picked Yan in the first fight there was no way you going to give him the first round of the second fight. You had to double-down.”

Longo says he had not paid much attention to social media in the year between Sterling vs. Yan fights and so never imagined that the Russian would be loudly favored over the American come fight week on American soil. “Two weeks before the second fight I was working a corner of another fighter Nazim, and he has the same management as Yan – Danny Rubenstein. Danny told me, ‘you know, Aljo is going to get booed.’ I thought there was no way, especially with what is going on with Russia in the world right now. So, we made a bet and [UFC matchmaker] Mick Maynard held the money.

“Then the press conference happens and Aljo gets booed! I told [former UFC middleweight champion and Sterling teammate Chris] Weidman about the bet and that I was shocked and he asked me, laughing, ‘do you follow Aljo on social media?’ I asked, ‘is it that bad?’ I thought it was a lock of a bet but the booing only got worse during weigh-ins. I texted Danny the day of the fight saying, ‘it’s going to be different the night of the fight.’ It wasn’t. They still booed him. Without a doubt I’d never felt better losing money, after Aljamain got booed and won. It was the best money I ever lost.”

Longo says that he believes Sterling has the mental fortitude to ignore the hatred when it needs to be ignored and to embrace it and perform to spite it when needed. As impressed as he is with his fighter’s mental and physical gifts, Longo also admires Sterling’s moral character.

It only makes it more painful and confusing for Longo to witness his guy, the Good Guy, get booed and taunted by the likes of Yan and new potential challenger, former champion TJ Dillashaw who is coming off of a lengthy PED suspension.

“I see the tremendous things Aljamain does for his family, for his community, for his team, for kids at his old high school. He does so much and never asks anything for it, he’s always been that way,” Longo says.

“For him to then be treated like the Bad Guy while guys like Dillashaw, who cheated, are embraced, the world is unrecognizable to me. I’d be embarrassed to show my face if I were Dillashaw. And, I’ll tell you what, if I ever caught one of my guys cheating I’d throw them out of the gym.”

After our conversation Longo heads to a team dinner to celebrate Sterling’s latest win, the result of perseverance through untold challenges. As incredible as it may seem Longo insists in closing that he never once doubted Sterling couldn’t do the unbelievable once more and beat the odds of overcoming a career-threatening neck injury and surgery to take out the bantamweight division’s boogeyman.

“No, I never really considered that,” he says.

“Things are always moving and he never gave me any reason to doubt that he’d be back.”