Matt Serra: Me And Aljamain Sterling Will Always Be Cool, I’m Going To Help Him Defend Title
Just last week it seemed the relationship between recently minted UFC bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling and his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach, Matt Serra had been significantly frayed, however, a week later — it appears their bond has been mended.
Former UFC welterweight champion, Serra, who along with Ray Longo operate Serra-Longo MMA in Long Island, New York — spoke on the UFC Unfiltered podcast with comedian, Jim Norton last week, voicing how “hurt” and “disrespected“ he felt when he learned that Sterling had elected to leave him out of his corner for UFC 259 at the start of the month, in place of Xtreme Couture coach, Eric Nicksick.
Serra went as far as announcing his retirement from cornering fighters in the future, however, the misunderstanding between the two appears to have been ironed out, with Serra releasing a video on his official Instagram this afternoon, captioned “Myself & @funkmastermma (Aljamain Sterling) will always be cool.“
In the video, Serra beckons Sterling to pick up his championship belt off of a pair of cardboard boxes, before claiming he’ll be helping the Uniondale native ahead of an expected immediate rematch with UFC 259 foe, former champion, Petr Yan.
“Okay, so people have been giving Aljamain Sterling a lot of hate,” Serra said. “One, because of the knee. And two, because they think he f*cking — me and him have some beef or something like that.“
“It’s true — I’m stepping away from cornering, for now,” Serra explained. “I ain’t cornering for a while, I’m spending time with the family, I’m not going away. But myself and the ‘Funk Master’ are always gonna be cool. Come on, man, let them know that we love each other.“
“I’m gonna help him defend this belt — come on man don’t just throw it on some boxes, pick that thing up it’s beautiful,” Serra said to Sterling. “I’m gonna help him defend this versus Petr Yan. We’re always cool. Petr Yan, he’s coming for you buddy.“
Receiving his fair share of criticism across his social media platforms, Sterling battled the above mentioned, Yan for four rounds in the opening of a three title-fight card at UFC 259 two weeks ago — claiming the championship in a disqualification win after Dudinka native, Yan landed, as per referee, Mark Smith, an intentional illegal knee to a grounded Sterling.
