Sherdog’s Top 10: Current Corners

Matt Serra and Ray Longo have enjoyed a successful partnership. | Photo: Keith Mills/Sherdog.com

6. Matt Serra/Ray Longo | Serra BJJ Academy/LAW MMA

Despite the recent changes in the relationship between Serra and Longo -- striking coach Longo has gone into business with UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, while Serra remains at his own academy -- the two distinctly accented coaches continue to run one of the very best camps in the world.

Although the pair has produced relatively few fighters in comparison to factories like American Top Team, the American Kickboxing Academy, Jackson-Wink MMA or Nova Uniao, those pupils have almost uniformly accomplished great things. Weidman, a homegrown Serra-Longo product, made his way to the UFC middleweight title with shocking ease; Eddie Gordon recently won a season of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series; Aljamain Sterling is perhaps the most promising young bantamweight in the UFC; and Al Iaquinta has developed into a reliable lightweight with upside. Of course, one could also mention Serra himself, with his having knocked out Georges St. Pierre in one of the biggest upsets in the history of the sport.

It is not just Serra and Longo who help make the camp special. Serra’s close ties with Renzo Gracie and John Danaher have been a major part of Weidman’s success in his young career, and the fighters maintain close ties with other gyms in the greater New York area. In Longo and Serra, however, fighters find coaches who instill rock-solid fundamentals in every phase, who have shown a real flair for game planning and who provide perhaps the best advice in the corner of any trainers in the game.

Here is hoping that Serra and Longo take on a few more students.

Number 5 » More than any other coach on this list, he has seen it all and done it all. The former Brazilian muay Thai champion had a second career as an MMA fighter in the no-holds-barred days of the sport and quickly transitioned to coaching under the banner of the feared Chute Boxe team.