📝 Nate Diaz: Guillotine Machine

First Things First

Nate Diaz is a combat sports superstar but he came onto the scene as “Nick’s little brother”. What changed? He beat a lot of people up in style.

Today we’re going to look at the common thread in Nate’s signature submission; the guillotine choke.

Nate Diaz

The Diaz brothers are a brand bigger than most MMA promotions. They put the small central Californian town of Stockton on the map, mainly because they’re tougher than the leather farmed there.

From a distance, both Diaz brothers strategy looked roughly the same. Swarm opponents, box on the feet, and snatch submissions as they present themselves.

But when you look a little closer their styles diverge with distinct technical and tactical differences.

Nick, the older brother, won his fights primarily on the feet. He’d jab forward until he was nose to nose with his opponents and then he’d loop hooks, uppercuts, and body punches until his opposition wilted.

Nate stood slightly further away. He’d pick opponents apart until the pitter patter pressuring punches were too much. Then they’d shoot, and, more often than not, end up submitting to chokeholds. Most commonly, the guillotine. Interestingly enough, his guillotine finishes look nearly identical.

Technical Takeaways

The guillotine choke is one of the most common submissions in the UFC. That’s mainly because it’s available from so many positions and has so many variations.

You can attack arm in, arm out, and arm across. Arm across is more commonly known as the seated arm triangle but it still deserves a call out here because of the similarity of body positioning. Watch Fluffy Hernandez break the hearts of BJJ practitioners everywhere by submitting Rodolfo Viera with one.

The arm in guillotine is arguably the trickiest variation to finish. To finish one requires quickly and carefully getting your chest over your opponent’s shoulders to crunch their neck down. Watch Brian Ortega jump to one here.

Arm out guillotines have several sub variations which all depend on how and where your lock is oriented. We’re not going to go through all of them here today. Instead we’re going to look at Nate Diaz’s preferred finishing sequence that quickly moves from a high wrist guillotine choke before ending as a power guillotine.

Technical Takeaways

Originally I wanted to write an article on Nate’s guillotine chokes. When I went back and watched the tape I noticed he finishes all of them the same same way.

First he grabs an arm in guillotine, then he gets his choking wrist as high as possible, and then uses his support arm to push the choking hand into his opponent’s neck.

High Wrist to Power Guillotine

The high wrist guillotine is a particularly powerful choke variation. It closes both of the carotid arteries with one arm and there isn’t much room for your opponent to hand fight.

What defines a high wrist guillotine is the placement of the choking arm. Your wrist travels high up such that your knuckles are anchored to your opponent’s trapezius muscle.

No points for being clever with the names.

You can then hide the choking arm by placing your chest over it. Your support arm can then loop over your opponent’s arm to reinforce the choking hand while trapping your opponent’s defensive arm.

Here are the defining points of the high wrist guillotine:

1. Glick’s wrist is high with his knuckles touching his partner’s trapezius muscle

2. The crook of Glick’s elbow is immediately under his partner’s chin

3. Glick’s chest will come down to hide his choking hand and close the submission

Here we can see Mike Malott using a high wrist guillotine to finish Adam Fugitt.

Now let’s touch on Nate’s finishing mechanics.

1. Nate’s wrist is high with his knuckles touching his partner’s trapezius muscle

2. The crook of Nate’s elbow is approaching Guillard’s chin

3. Nate’s support hand is pushing the choking hand into Guillard’s neck

Now let’s look at how he sets this up and actually finishes it.

Nate Is Known For Boxing Into Chokes

The most common way Nate will get to his submissions is by punching into them. He’ll pressure and his opponent will push back. The problem is that they expose their neck in the process.

Nate had the high wrist position before taking his hand out to push in for the power guillotine. We’ll see roughly the same thing in all of his guillotine finishes.

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