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Every Tuesday morning I send out a breakdown of the best combat sports action. In less than 10 minutes you'll learn how the top fighters win and anything else fighters, martial artists, and fight fans need to know.
UFC 317 ended as easily the best UFC card of the year so far. In the co-main event, Alexandre Pantoja shined with suffocating grappling and a third round submission. Today we’re going to analyze how he made it look so easy.
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Now let’s get into it.
What's In Today's Letter?
Alexandre Pantoja is aging better than fine wine. In the past 4 years, Pantoja has gone undefeated with 8 victories, 4 finishes, and 4 performance bonuses. This time, he left his opponent facedown on the canvas with another rear naked choke.
Pantoja is a bit of paradoxical fighter.
On the feet Pantoja is wild, unafraid of eating counter strikes and undeterred by his own unsuccessful offense. He will run forward flailing hands and feet until he can grab onto his opponent. Then they either fold, or fall to the mat.
Once Pantoja is on the ground he’s a finely sharpened blade. A Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt that can carefully and quickly cut through his opponents’ defensive barriers until he’s squeezing the life out of them. He did it again last night. Let’s see how.
PULLING TO THE BACK
Pantoja’s Unique Method Of Getting Back Control
Pantoja is not the most technical wrestler. Many of his takedowns come from him overwhelming opponents until they fall over or dragging them down along the fence. But one thing he does better than anyone in MMA, active or retired, is pull people into a crab ride.
Crab riding is when you have back control, but you don’t have hooks in. Instead, your shins and feet behind your opponent’s lower legs so you can flare them out, disrupting their base.
Here is one of the coolest crab riding sequences I’ve ever seen.
Chen is passing side to side. Leary grabs his ankle and puts in a reverse de la Riva hook. Chen drops to his to break it but Leary scoops the other leg and enters K guard. Leary moves Chen’s leg over his body, drops his knee behind Chen’s, and grabs his hips. Now he’s in crab ride. Leary pulls down on Chen’s hips, kicks him and hops up, and throws his hooks in to cement the back take.
Levi Jones-Leary - Jozef Chen
And here is Pantoja’s chaotic crab ride set-up in the first round of his fight against Kai Kara France, KKF.
Pantoja runs KKF to the fence with wild kicks and punches. Then he lifts KKF with a double leg. KKF pops up but Pantoja has a rear body lock. Then Pantoja sits to his butt to crab ride. Pantoja kicks KKF’s legs out so he can throw his hooks in before locking a body triangle.
Alexandre Pantoja - Kai Kara France
That’s one thing that’s unique about Pantoja. When he gets behind his opponent he has no problem sitting down and pulling them into his lap. From there he can crab ride, kick their base out, and establish back control like he does above.
Later in the first round, Pantoja showed some unorthodox passing and ground and pound.
Pantoja uses a near under hook and his head over the far shoulder to flatten KKF. When KKF squirms away, Pantoja drops his forehead into KKF’s chin. Then Pantoja sneaks in a couple of knees to the body before dropping a shoulder on KKF’s chin. Pantoja steps his left foot past KKF’s far leg to flatten his hips. KKF turns away and gives up his back.
Alexandre Pantoja - Kai Kara France
This sequence above is a welcome change from Pantoja’s earlier fights where he was over eager on top and often gave up position.
In the third, Pantoja pulled France down again. Then he took his time hitting KKF to distract him from the rear naked choke.
Pantoja uses a left under hook to prop KKF up. Then he punches KKF with his left hand. When KKF drops onto his left side, Pantoja moves his left under hook over KKF’s shoulder. That means KKF’s neck drops directly into the choke. KKF pulls down on Pantoja’s grip a few times until he is forced to submit.
Alexandre Pantoja - Kai Kara France
KKF didn’t exactly have the best back control defense here. There are several means of escaping back control, but there are 2 general defensive mechanics you want to use to stay safe from rear naked chokes:
Cross gripping on top of your opponent’s choking hand.
Getting your head higher than your opponent’s
These small and simple adjustments can give you the time and space you need to safely scoot out of back control.
But KKF’s defense wasn’t all bad. To be frank, he’s one of the only fighters I’ve seen proactively escape the back body lock with modern best practices.
GOOD DEFENSE IS ITS OWN REWARD
KKF Shows How To Escape the Back Body Triangle
It’s a bit of a UFC meme for the announcers to call out how to escape the back body triangle. They always announce that you need to put the locked ankles on bottom so the pressure on them forces the ankles open.
That can work. But it’s relying on your opponent to say I’ve had enough.
What you want to do is use deliberate movements that break open your opponent’s lock like KKF does below.
KKF scissors his legs a couple times to loosen Pantoja’s body triangle. When Pantoja’s legs open, KKF turns and ends up in half guard. Pantoja grabs an arm triangle choke. KKF bucks as Pantoja slides to mount so Pantoja opens his hands to post on the mat. KKF is able to slide back into half guard with minimal shots absorbed.
Alexandre Pantoja - Kai Kara France
Let’s look at the important parts below.
Pantoja has a tight body triangle so KKF scissors his legs to bring his bottom leg behind Pantoja’s outside leg
Now when KKF brings his bottom knee back in, Pantoja’s outside foot is between KKF’s legs
Pantoja’s knees are wider and looser
KKF scissors his legs again to push the lock open and turn out of the body triangle
While KKF’s defensive maneuvers were admirable here they only prolonged the inevitable.
What’s more impressive to me from this fight is that it’s the second time Pantoja has beaten KKF. Last time it was a decision on The Ultimate Fighter. That means Pantoja is still getting better at 35 years old.
After Pantoja left KKF facedown on the floor, the UFC brought in the winner from the previous fight, Joshua Van. And if you haven’t seen that fight yet, stop what you’re doing now and to watch it. It’s an awesome 15 minute scrap and an easy contender for fight of the year.
With this win Pantoja has beaten 6 of the Flyweight’s top 10. Half of them more than once! The only 2 in the top 5 that he hasn’t beaten, Tatsuro Taira and Amir Albazi are actually scheduled to fight each other on August 2nd. The only fights that make sense for him right now are Joshua Van, Kyoji Horiguchi (his training partner), and Muhammad Mokaev (if he ever comes back to the UFC).
Now Pantoja owns the UFC flyweight records for wins, submissions, and finishes. He is clearly the second best flyweight ever and if he’s not in your top 4 P4P you’re blind.
THE HELP CENTER UPDATES
What Makes Pantoja Elite
Last week I released the next phase of Open Note Grappling. It’s a digital help desk with notes on the best grapplers to study, techniques that actually work in competition, and guides on specific themes.
With Alexandre Pantoja fighting this weekend, I’ve updated the Open Note Grappling Help Desk to include detailed analysis on what makes Alexandre Pantoja special.
Want to read more, see everything the Help Desk has, and make learning grappling easy?
Upgrade to Help Desk here
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I’ll be adding to the Help Desk regularly so it has everything you could want to study the best grapplers in the game and learn how jiujitsu actually works.
Want to see something specific there? Email me.
See y’all next week!
LINKS, INSTRUCTIONALS, AND MORE MATCHES TO STUDY:
Some Free Pantoja Fights
Click here to watch Alexandre Pantoja’s first fight with KKF.
You can also watch a highlight of his previous finishes here.
THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS (you might have missed)
Jon Jones may have retired but he’s not out of our news cycles yet. After allegations of his most recent run-in with the law came out, it looks like Jones has now implicated himself as guilty on Twitter. Can’t make this shit up.
UFC Noche has been moved from Mexico to San Antonio but they got an insane main event. Jean Silva will take on Diego Lopes.
The UFC’s BJJ reality show ended last week. Mikey Musumeci, Carlos Henrique, and Andrew Tackett all won their matches, making them the inaugural bantamweight, lightweight, and welterweight champions. But Craig Jones decided to declare war on the UFC and Dana White. If you want to see him blow-up an inflatable Dana White doll click here.
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