Three Separate Ways To Finish The Rear Naked Choke From One Weekend In MMA

The Rear Naked Choke’s Value And Variations

The rear naked choke is undoubtedly the most efficient submission in grappling. Not only does the position afford you an extreme advantage in safety and strength, but the submission is direct, taking only a handful of seconds to render your opponent unconscious. And while the submission is brutally effective, there are several distinct ways to employ it.

Over two separate events we saw three distinct rear naked choke set ups and finishes. Before we review the finishes, let’s address the three principal components of the rear naked choke so we can understand why all of these submissions worked so well. The principal components of the rear naked choke are the

• Lock - your choking arm grips your bicep and your support arm is wedged behind your opponent’s neck

• Anchor - your chin staples into your opponent’s shoulder next to your opponent’s ear, over your grip

• Angle - with your body directly behind your opponent,

As long as you achieve these three distinct control points, there are several ways the rest of your body can be configured and you can still complete the submission. Now let’s check out the finishes from this weekend.

Patchy Mix Plays With The Straight Jacket

In what was Bellator’s final show before being announced as part of the PFL, Patchy Mix choked Sergio Pettis to win the bantamweight title. Before that the fight was hardly competitive.

Mix took Pettis down in the first round before passing his guard and controlling him for the duration of the time. In the second, Mix behind Pettis on the feet before taking him to the floor to finish the fight. Once Mix was in back mount he used the straight jacket to control Pettis, trap an arm, and make the choke that much easier.

The straight jacket gained popularity and more mainstream Brazilian jiu-jitsu adoption through John Danaher’s students’ competitive success. You can read more about the straight jacket specifically here, and below is how Mix used it.

For what it’s worth, Mix has trained with Danaher’s stand out student Garry Tonon in the past. You have to think those training sessions helped lead to this finish.

At the main event of the UFC fight this weekend we got another rear naked choke that was almost in direct opposition to Mix’s straight jacket. The choke came on fast with essentially no hooks nor lower body control.

Brendan Allen’s Choke Without Hooks

This Saturday the UFC paired two submission specialists against one another in Paul Craig versus Brendan Allen. Allen is generally more well rounded and attacks from top, while Craig uses guard work and triangle chokes to get highlight reel finishes.

Allen beat Craig up all over the Octagon on Saturday. The two had some exciting grappling exchanges, but, after two rounds, Allen got on top of Craig for the finish.

Allen’s rear naked choke highlights an important idea. If you’re going to prioritize anything in back mount it needs to be upper body control.

With upper body control you can wear your opponent down, mat return them, and choke them to end the fight. Conversely, if you prioritize lower body control and only have hooks with no upper body control, your opponent can turn and squirm out of the position. Most importantly, as long as you have the lock, anchor, and angle of the rear naked choke you can finish the fight.

If at any point your opponent’s neck opens up you need to stop what you’re doing and get the choke immediately like Allen did above. If you can hold the neck you can always get the hooks after.

A Rear Naked Choked Secured Mid Scramble

Without a doubt the most impressive rear naked choke finish of the weekend came from Chase Hooper. Hooper was having a Brazilian jiu-jitsu shoot out with Jordan Leavitt, but ultimately Hooper was able to get to the neck in transition to end the fight.

The sequence gets even impressive when you factor in the scramble immediately before it.

It’s been exciting to watch Hooper’s development in real time. I wouldn’t at all be upset with slow rolling his development to see more interesting grappling exchanges like what we got above.

One Takeaway From The Three Rear Naked Chokes, And What’s Next

If there is one thing to takeaway from this weekend’s finishes it’s the importance of creating movement to solidify quick finishes.

Mix was hitting Pettis and threatening chokes to get him to open up for the cross grips and straight jacket that won him the fight.
Allen pressured Craig to get to turtle and try to stand which opened up his neck for the submission.
Hooper rolled over Leavitt’s back and sunk the choke arm in mid roll.

Three submissions and none of them came from static. The fighters created movement before seizing the submission midway through. It was wonderful to watch so much high level grappling in one weekend and we have more on the horizon.

In two weeks Arman Tsarukyan will take on Beneil Dariush in a dream match-up of grapplers. There is no UFC scheduled before that but the PFL is putting on their end of season pay-per-view championship this Friday. The PFL also used this week to announce their official purchase of Bellator. The two brands will run together next year with Bellator undoubtedly being wound down to make way for the PFL. All of this is happening while the UFC is getting ready to go to court next year and ONE is apparently almost out of money.

The business of mixed martial arts hasn’t been this exciting in a while. We’ll keep you updated on all of the technical and topical analysis to make you the smartest commentator at the end of the bar, or wherever you watch your fights.