February 21, 2024 2: 40 pm ET
Ray Longo applauded his star trainees, Merab Dvalishvili and Aljamain Sterling, for neverever battling each other.
When Sterling was bantamweight champ, spotting competitor Dvalishvili (17-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) declined to battle his colleague for the title, which UFC CEO Dana White greatly slammed.
But after Sterling lost his bantamweight title and moved up to featherweight, the door opened for Dvalishvili, who was stated No. 1 competitor for his outstanding win over Henry Cejudo this past Saturday at UFC 298.
“To me, this is going to go down as one of the biggest human interest stories in MMA,” Longo stated in a current episode of the “Anik & Florian” podcast. “How these 2 guys formed a brotherhood and they didn’t surrender to all the bullsh*t. They didn’t sell out for $100,000.
“They put their relationship veryfirst and now whatever’s working out, and they had to take a lot of sh*t for it. Aljo got