Fight night in New Jersey belongs to Long Island.

Aljamain Sterling eked out a tight split decision victory over former two-division champion Henry Cejudo at UFC 288 in Newark, setting a new record for consecutive UFC bantamweight title defenses with his third.

Sterling, a former two-time All-American wrestler at SUNY Cortland, and 2008 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle Henry Cejudo tested each other’s grappling chops throughout, with each finding success in the takedown department but Sterling getting to moderately more threatening positions.

Kicks played a big part in Sterling’s standup offense — as they often do — with the champion working the legs and body. Cejudo, who has eight knockouts on his ledger, had trouble landing the big punch he was looking to set up throughout.

“He’s a gamer,” Cejudo said of Sterling. “It was close, but Aljamain did his job, got the victory.”

After the fight, top contender Sean O’Malley was brought into the octagon for what became a testy, expletive-laden faceoff tn front of 17,559 at sold-out Prudential Center.

Earlier in the night, Sterling’s Longo and Weidman MMA teammate Matt Frevola thrilled the Newark crowd with a first-round TKO of Drew Dober.

Frevola, whom Mets owner Steve Cohen came to see, picked apart the hard-hitting veteran from the outside before dropping Dober with a right and finishing him off with heavy hands on the mat.

The biggest winners outside the metropolitan area came in the two bouts preceding the championship fight. Belal Muhammad earned a convincing decision victory over Gilbert Burns to set up a likely future welterweight title shot in non-title, five-round action.

Yan Xiaonan scored a first-round TKO of Jessica Andrade in an upset that paves the way for a potential all-China strawweight title fight against champion Zhang Weili.