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Can't take the fight out of this Long Islander

BY JOE FERNANDEZ | Newsday.com

November 9, 2006

Long Island Check it.

In case you haven't noticed, East Meadow's Matt Serra is one win away from earning a shot at the UFC welterweight championship.

The 32-year-old UFC veteran, who appeared on Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback," will face Chris Lytle on Saturday in the show's season finale in Las Vegas. The winner gets a shot at the belt.

The event, which begins at 9 p.m. on Spike TV, will also showcase the middleweight final between Travis Lutter and Patrick Cote. The undercard will feature a matchup between Bay Shore native Pete Sell, one of Serra's top students, and fellow season four contestant Scott Smith.

Because all TUF contestants are required to stay in the same house for six weeks during the taping, fighters get a true sense of their roommates' styles.

"More than anybody in the house, I worked with Chris the most," Serra said. "I know he's got real good hands. He's extremely well-rounded; he's very good on the floor. We had some hard, intense sparring matches. If our fight is going to be anything like that, which I'm sure it would be, it's going to really pay off for the fans. They're the ones who are going to be the winners."

Season four pitted veteran fighters looking for one more chance to make it in the fast-growing UFC. The winners of the two weight classes earn title shots in a couple of months. Serra could be standing across the Octagon from Matt Hughes, arguably the greatest fighter pound-for-pound in the history of the UFC. But first Hughes has to defend his welterweight belt against Georges St. Pierre Saturday, Nov. 18, at UFC 65.

"I don't sweat that," Serra said of possibly facing Hughes. "The deal is this -- it's a fight. I don't care what his record is, no human being is unbeatable. This is mixed martial arts, this is the sport of upsets. If I'm fighting Matt Hughes, I'm fighting Matt Hughes. If I take him out, that's the goal. And if I don't, he'll know he's been in a fight. That's the attitude you have to have, otherwise you don't belong in there."

And that's the attitude that earned Serra the distinction of being the first American black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Renzo Gracie, a member of the legendary Gracie family. Serra owns and runs two academies on Long Island (Huntington and East Meadow) with his brother Nick. While Matt Serra already has eight fights in the UFC, his fighting career got an early start in his East Meadow neighborhood.

"I had my share of scraps in junior high and high school," Serra said. "I'll tell you right now, if I had the Serra Jitsu academy there would have been a different outlet for me. Not that I was a troublemaker or used to look for trouble, but it definitely would've channeled it the right way."

So will the people get to see one of Serra's Brazilian jiu-jitsu submissions?

"Any way I can end it would be phenomenal," Serra said. "Of course a submission would be beautiful."

Visit Matt's site at www.serrajitsu.com