In a wide-ranging interview, Ray Longo, coach of current UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman and former welterweight champ Matt Serra, talked about the differences between being the best, and being the best on one night, when it counts.

Longo sat down with SportsNet’s “Showdown” Joe Ferraro, host of “UFC Central” in Canada, and recalled Serra’s improbable win over Georges St-Pierre in 2007 to win the UFC’s welterweight title. It still is considered by most to be the biggest upset in UFC history, and perhaps all of MMA.

Longo recalled Serra being released from the UFC after his first stint, then calling him up to say he had been asked back for the “comeback season” of “The Ultimate Fighter – where the winner would get a title shot. Serra won the show, then under Longo’s tutelage knocked out St-Pierre at UFC 69 to win the belt.

“It wasn’t just like a title shot,” Longo told Ferraro. “It was, ‘This is it.’ We had the conversation: ‘This is my last chance.’ And wow, did he take advantage of that. When he went into that ring against ‘GSP,’ he said, ‘Dude, I’m airing this s–t out. I’m letting it go.’

“He believed in me and I believed in him, and on that night that was what you saw. That was the beauty of that night to me.”

Serra is no longer active, though he has never had a formal retirement announcement. Now he joins Longo to help coach Weidman, who knocked out Anderson Silva this past July to win the middleweight belt in another major upset. Then he upset him again in their rematch when a checked kick broke Silva’s leg.

Longo hears fighters talk about being the best on that one night – like Serra was against St-Pierre. But he also sees them well in advance, and said it’s his job to make sure his fighters look as good on fight night as they did leading up to it.

“I see guys functioning 15 pounds before the weight cut,” he said. “For me, it becomes, ‘How do I get this guy to the fight the way I see him three weeks before the fight?’ You never know. You have a bad weight cut, and all of a sudden you’re looking at a different guy, and it’s heartbreaking because you know what the guy can do.

“Everything has to be in place. … When you believe in your team and things are going good, it’s really important on that night that you bring your ‘A’ game.”

Check out the full interview between Ferraro and Longo above. Then tomorrow, don’t miss “Showdown” Joe’s half-hour conversation with Serra here at MMAjunkie.