There was a time when it looked like Al Iaquinta might end up being a UFC 'what if' — someone who showed championship upside, but through a combination of injuries, stalemates with the organization and odd missteps, never quite put it all together and failed to reach his full potential.
After amassing a 7-1 record following his TUF 15 finale loss to Michael Chiesa, Iaquinta hit pause on his promising career. Coming off his biggest victory to date — a split decision win over Jorge Masvidal made memorable by Iaquinta cussing out fans in Fairfax, Virgina for booing during his post-fight interview — the Serra-Longo Fight Team member stopped competing and turned his focus to real estate, frustrated with his contract situation with the UFC and certain he could make the same or better money by selling Long Island bungalows.
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He came back in April 2017, smashed Diego Sanchez and then dipped again as he was still not completely satisfied with his deal. A year later, Iaquinta was primed to face Paul Felder at UFC 223 in Brooklyn when things went off the rails.
First, Tony Ferguson was forced out of his latest scheduled bout with Khabib Nurmagomedov, prompting the UFC to tab featherweight kingpin Max Holloway to step in and face the unbeaten grappler from Dagestan for the vacant lightweight title. During the week, Conor McGregor rampaged through the loading dock at Barclays Arena, hurling a dolly at a bus containing Nurmagomedov and various other athletes, injuring Chiesa and Ray Borg in the process.
The morning before the event, Holloway was pulled from the fight due to concerns over his weight cut and after some negotiating, Iaquinta landed in the unexpected vacancy opposite Nurmagomedov. Because he had already weighed in at 155.2 pounds for his non-title matchup against Felder, Iaquinta became ineligible to win the title, but the fight was set and “Ragin’ Al" was suddenly headlining a UFC pay-per-view.
He acquitted himself well in a losing effort, going the full 25-minutes with the undefeated champion, and then, for the first time since 2015, he logged a second appearance in the same calendar year eight months later, returning to the cage to score a unanimous decision win over Kevin Lee in the main event of the final UFC on FOX broadcast.
This weekend in Ottawa, Iaquinta headlines his third straight event, paired off with Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in a lightweight matchup that is equal parts guaranteed entertainment and packed with divisional significance.
Four years after seeming like he might just be one of those guys who had a bunch of success in the UFC, but never quite put it all together, the Long Island native is on the cusp of earning a title shot and finally showing all that he’s capable of inside the cage.
“It feels like everything is coming together pretty good,” said Iaquinta, who turned 32 earlier in the week, but is holding off on celebrations until after this weekend’s engagement with Cerrone. “I train hard, train with the best guys and I’m feeling better than I’ve ever felt. I found the Sports Science lab in Staten Island two, maybe three years ago — maybe even more than that — but it’s all coming together.
“The right people are in my life,” he added. “The right people are surrounding me and the wrong people aren’t. I have every opportunity and every — there is nothing that I’m missing. I have every single thing that is needed to become a champion, so now it’s on me. I believe in myself and I know how much work I put into it, so I’m having fun.”
As cliché as it might sound to some, there is something to be said for finding a group of people you trust and can roll with, literally and figuratively, and Iaquinta has that in the other members of the Serra-Longo Fight Team.
The group, which includes former middleweight champion Chris Weidman and class clown Gian Villante, travels in a pack and supports one another at all times. When one of them is fighting, all of them are there, with Iaquinta and ascending bantamweight contender Aljamain Sterling taking it to another level and being a part of each others’ corner whenever they step into the cage.
Another member of the team, bantamweight Merab Dvalishvilli, competes Saturday night at the Canadian Tire Centre as well, which means an even larger contingent than normal is going to be in attendance in the Canadian capital, cheering on the toughest realtor in the industry.
“My last two fights, Aljo’s last two fights, Merab’s last two fights — we’ve all come to each others’ last few fights and we’ve all been supporting each other,” explained Iaquinta, who plans on combining his birthday celebration with Cinco de Mayo for a next level blowout following a win on Saturday. “We have such a great crew.
“(Ray Longo and Matt Serra will be here). Weidman will be out here. Villante will be out here, all my friends, family — it’s really turning into a party. We travel, we have a good time and we just so happen to get into a fight at the end of the whole thing. It’s fun.”
Outside the Octagon activities not withstanding, it’s his performances inside the Octagon that are the most important for Iaquinta at this point in time and heading into this weekend’s headlining assignment, the top-ranked lightweight is firing on all cylinders.
Despite landing on the wrong side of the scorecards against Nurmagomedov, many came away from that fight with a newfound respect and different outlook on Iaquinta, who never backed down and had some success against the current champion, despite zero time to prepare and training for a three-round fight against an opponent with an entirely different skill set.
Then, in December, he earned a unanimous decision win over Lee, who had passed him in the lightweight pecking order since their first encounter nearly five years earlier.
That initial bout was Lee’s first foray into the Octagon and he had a good showing, despite coming away with the first loss of his career. In the years that followed, he rattled off nine wins in 10 appearances to establish himself as one of the top young talents in the division and land an interim title bout against Ferguson.
After coming up short against “El Cucuy,” Lee rounded to score a fifth-round stoppage win over Edson Barboza in a fight where he was forced to show his ability to recover after getting rocked by one of the Brazilian’s trademark spinning attacks midway through the fight.
Following years of Lee barking about wanting a rematch, it finally happened and the result was more of the same. Now, Iaquinta is looking to turn in another impressive performance against Cerrone on Saturday.
“The goal is to go out there and make it look easy and flawless,” he said, dissecting his bout with the well-travelled fan favorite, who is coming off consecutive stoppage wins. “If it goes the way I want it to go, people will be saying, ‘Oh, he might be a little over the hill.’
“His last fight, he definitely did not look like he was over the hill, but it seems like that’s the question people keep asking me, so I keep answering it,” continued the ever-honest Iaquinta. “It’s my job to go in there and make him look like he’s not the best Donald Cerrone and I think I do that to everybody. I go in there and (it’s always), ‘Oh they had an off night.’ They can give whatever reason they want, but it’s really a testament to my skills and my work ethic and what they feel in the cage with me. You can’t see it from the outside, but I think they feel the energy, they feel something else once they get in there and I think that’s the reason for the difference.”
In addition to the strong cast of coaches and training partners he works with on a daily basis in the gym, Iaquinta gives a lot of credit for his current form and overall ability to make elite fighters have an “off night” whenever they share the cage with him to the work he does at the Sports Science Lab in Staten Island.
“It’s everything — light stuff, mental stuff — and I really, really believe in the brain training and the hand-eye coordination drills, depth perception drills,” he said. “The stuff that I’m doing is on another level and people that aren’t doing it are at a huge disadvantage. It’s like if I were doing strength and conditioning and no one else was doing strength and conditioning. It’s like the advantage I would have there and I truly believe that.
“I’m blessed to have those guys behind me,” he added about the uplifting energy of the entire staff at the Staten Island facility. “There are days where I’ve gone in there after a bad workout where things were going crazy in my personal life, I was injured or sore and I leave that place feeling like I could take over the world.”
This weekend, he doesn’t need to take over the world, but he does intend to take out Cerrone and cement his standing as one of the top contenders in the lightweight division.
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“I think the division is kind of playing itself out right now,” said Iaquinta. “It was a little awry for a while, but with a big win, a dominant win over a guy like 'Cowboy' puts me right up there and I have all the capabilities to go out there and do it."
Iaquinta has a vision for the fight may go.
“I kind of think he’s going to try to take me down for some reason,” he said, forecasting how Saturday’s main event might play out. “I don’t think he can, but I kind of hope he does because I’ve been working all areas of my game. I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.
“I can see it being a kickboxing fight — he’s a great kickboxer — and he’s been working his wrestling a lot more — he took Hernandez down in the last fight," he continued. "Either way, I think this is a great stylistic matchup for me and no matter how it goes, I’m getting my hand raised.”
And then the birthday celebrations will begin.