Fighters Only

Issue 148

December 2016

Ray Longo is determined to create a legacy of Long Island UFC champions

LEADING MAN

FO heads off the mats with MMA’s most powerful coaches, executives and personalities

Ray Longo keeps his circle small. He’s more than just a coach to his fighters. They’re his friends and family. And as much as he takes pride in guiding two men to UFC titles, he’s just as that all his full-time athletes have Long Island roots.

Garden City’s LAW MMA has all the hallmarks of an elite gym. Its owners – head coach Ray Longo and fighter Chris Weidman – won a UFC championship together and they have a number of talented Octagon athletes under their roof. But unlike many of the top facilities, bringing in top fighters to win world titles is not their main goal.

“We were never the gym that focused on recruiting,” Longo says. “We are a gym taking guys from the neighborhood and doing the best we could with them. That is the specialty of this gym. Everybody is within five square miles from the gym. That is what makes this place special.

“I have two guys who won a championship that were homegrown guys. To me, that is special. It’s going to be hard to duplicate that. It’s not just getting them to become champions – to do it as two huge upsets is something I will cherish for the rest of my life. This is a special thing and that separates us from other gyms.”

The only thing missing from their setup was an ability to fight in their home state. The Long Island team would have to go across state lines to New Jersey for the closest competition. But after New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill to make the Empire State the 50th to legalize professional mixed martial arts, they can finally fight on home turf. Longo just wonders what took so long.

“It was a big deal to finally get it legalized in New York.” He says. “For me, because I have been around for so long, I feel like it should have been legalized ten years ago. It was almost anticlimactic. For me it was like, ‘Why couldn’t we do this five years ago? What held us up?’ There was a lot of joy and happiness but also the thought that this should have been done years ago.”

Now that red tape has been cut, UFC 205 is coming and some of LAW MMA’s top names will be able to take a bite out of the Big Apple. So many fighters were looking forward to testing their skills under the biggest and brightest lights in the media capital of the world, but few more than those who get to represent their neighborhood – just across the East River.

“Everybody is proud of where they grew up and to be able to reach the top of your sport and demonstrate that at some of the biggest arenas in the world is a huge thing,” adds Longo. “You take that with you for the rest of your life.

“It’s a big deal to fight at the Garden, where Ali fought Frazier and (with its) rich history of fight sports. This is a big event. It’s a great thing for New York. It will be a hot ticket. Everybody wants to experience New York City. It’s going to be huge for all fighters, not just people from the state. It’s a bucket-list item for a lot of people.”

His accomplishments in the corner of the Octagon have made Longo the most well-known and one of the most highly regarded trainers from his home state. His popularity and notoriety have grown so much in the last decade, he’s become something of a minor MMA celebrity. But he doesn’t court the spotlight. He wants to save that for his fighters.

“These are the guys that are fighting. I am there to be a safety net when they fall and to hoist them up on your shoulders when they win. That’s what I have always liked doing… I want to see Weidman get his title back and I want to see Aljo (Aljamain Sterling) and Al (Iaquinta) get a crack at the title. Then I will ride off into the sunset.”

If it was ever in doubt, that would surely secure one of the mixed martial arts’ most popular men his place in the history books.