Paddy Pimblett Creates A Signature Submission

Before Conor McGregor sucked the air out of UFC 329 there were some great fights! We got a brand new submission and slick scrambling from the mid card. We’re going to talk about the important takeaways here.

Now let’s get into it.

It was the most hyped return in UFC history.
It was the most anticlimactic finish in UFC history.

They were the most expensive floor seats in UFC history.
They were the most disappointed attendees in UFC history.

It was Conor McGregor’s first strike of the fight.
It was Conor McGregor’s last real strike of the fight.

After 5 years away from the UFC, McGregor blew out his knee throwing a bicycle kick in the opening seconds of his fight with Max Holloway.

That’s all there was to it and we can’t it overshadow what was an excellent fight card. The most confusing contender in MMA, Paddy Pimblett, got a signature submission win on French bruiser Benoit Saint-Denis.

This is the first time I’ve seen someone finish a d’arce choke like this but it’s not the first time we’ve seen someone step over the arms to finish an indirect choke before.

Okay so why do these variations work? They prevent the defender from opening up their shoulders, getting room to breathe, and hand fighting to escape.

When you’re trapped in any indirect choke (d’arce, anaconda, triangle, etc.) your opponent has to choke you around your trapped shoulder. To do that, they need to hold your limb in place while their lock closes your carotid artery directly. Let’s look at an image of Rafa Mendes demonstrating an anaconda choke to explain what I mean.

Now let’s look at Paddy’s.

You might be wondering, what was BSD doing? Why was he just waiting under Paddy?

It’s not the worst idea to belly out and open up space to breathe. It’s how Arman Tsarukyan survived against Charles Oliveira.

The key difference between Arman and BSD is Arman used bellying out to open space near his shoulder so he had a bit of breathing room to wait out the round. You can’t just wait. You need to scramble to stay safe.

I think Paddy’s success is mainly from matchmaking. This was the first ranked fighter he has fought who was under 37 at the time. But this submission still blew me away and I can’t help but be impressed by his improvements.

Paddy has three compelling fights at the top of lightweight available to him. Ilia Topuria, Arman Tsarukyan, and Charles Oliveira are all extremely marketable events. The more I think about it, the less I doubt his chances of becoming a champion in the current lightweight division.

Justin Gaethje has one or two fights left at most. Oliveira, Gamrot, Holloway and Moicano will also probably retire soon as well. That leaves Topuria, Arman, Quillan Salkilld, and Mauricio Ruffy in the top 10.

Topuria is a bit undersized for 155, Salkilld is still green, Ruffy doesn’t have any grappling defense, and the UFC hates Arman. They might make him wrestle in RAF while Paddy collects a championship.

The two fights immediately prior Paddy’s win were the best fights on the whole card. They both also reinforced some important lessons about scrambling in MMA.

Cory Sandhagen rematched Mario Bautista at UFC 329. The fight was close as can be going into the third round. Then Bautista dropped Sandhagen. Bautista blitzed and Sandhage leaned on his training with leg locking wizard Ryan Hall to survive.

I loved this. Sandhagen rolling into a leg entanglement to stay safe directly contrasts conventional wisdom that says leg locks will get you knocked out.

If you entangle the legs correctly, your opponent does not have a base to strike.
If they can’t strike effectively, they can’t hurt you.
Yes, it really is that simple.

Earlier in the fight Bautista used his own submission skills to damage Sandhagen’s leg and take away his movement.

This is the second suloev stretch we’ve seen in back to back weeks. People are so eager to turtle and stand-up they’re exposing themselves for what used to be a niche leg lock.

It’s not to say that turtling is inherently incorrect, it’s just turtling does open up specific follow-up attacks for your opponent that playing guard does not. And because guard play is becoming rarer and rarer, a good guard is counterintuitively more dangerous now because of how relatively rare it is.

Brandon Royval actually leaned on his jiujitsu to guard himself from getting knocked out before Sandhagen’s fight.

In the third round Royval got back in Kavanagh’s face and they both hurt each other. Then Royval shot on Kavanagh and the Brit tried to counter with a guillotine choke, ended up on bottom, and Royval slid to his back. He sealed the fight with some brilliant simple hand fighting to get a submission win.

You just can’t neglect fundamentally sound jiujitsu. It can seal the fight, or at least keep you safe.

ADCC 2026 will have a lot of firsts. After the most recent ADCC Oceania trials, the World Championships will have their first ever Maori competitor, Kaya Ruodolph.

The 24 year old has been training grappling for 2/3 of his life. Rudolph got his black belt from Lachlan Giles and has great leg entanglements like you’d expect all students under Giles would. But he often uses those leg entanglements to get to his opponent’s back.

Rudolph finished half of his matches by rear naked choke at the ADCC Trials.

Read about Rudolph and the rest of 2026’s ADCC newcomers in my ADCC Rookie Report here below👇