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UFC 297: How To Do Indirect Chokes

UFC 297: How To Do Indirect Chokes

A closer look at some of the submissions from UFC 297

William
January 23rd, 2024

First Things First

UFC 297 ended with some good choke finishes and few missed ones. Today we’re looking at the successful submissions to analyze why which chokes worked, and to better understand indirect chokes generally. Let’s get into it.

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UFC 297: A Lesson On Indirect Chokes

The UFC’s first pay-per-view is over and done with. We have a new middleweight champion, the Canadian men came home from the UFC in Toronto with zero wins, and there were many submission attempts. Some were more successful than others, and we’re going to take a closer look at why to better understand indirect chokes.

Direct vs Indirect Chokes

The easiest way to understand chokes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu is by dividing them into direct vs indirect chokes. Direct chokes involve using your limbs to suffocate your opponent without any obstruction. Examples include guillotines and rear naked chokes.

Indirect chokes have you choke your opponent through an obstruction, most commonly a shoulder. Think of triangle chokes, d’arces, and arm triangles.

With indirect chokes, you generally have a support limb and a choking limb. The choking limb is the primary driver of the submission, and the support limb reinforces the position. No points for being clever there.

Generally, the choking limb needs to be flush with the opponent’s neck, pulling in tight to close off the space around the open carotid artery. The supporting limb is on the other side of the neck to lock the choking limb in place.

This idea of choking vs support limbs is most clearly illustrated using the triangle choke. One of the subjects of today’s article actually missed their triangle attempt early in their fight before another submission attack.

At UFC 297, we saw two distinct indirect chokes fail and succeed at different points in the night. Let’s look at them more closely to understand why.

Arm Triangle Choke

The first fight of the night and the co-main event both gave us arm triangle chokes. Only one had a chance at working though.

_{Raquel Pennington vs Mayra Bueno Silva}

_{Ineffective Arm Triangle Choke}

Pennington pushes Mayra’s arm across so she can lock her hands. Unfortunately her weight shifts forward as she does, meaning she cannot fully close the obstructed carotid artery.

Pennington’s choking elbow is a bit wide, away from Silva’s neck. This saves Silva inches of breathing room. More importantly, she has not achieved ear to ear position so the obstructed carotid artery remains open. No closure means no submission here.

_{Jimmy Flick vs Malcolm Gordon}

_{Effective Arm Triangle Choke}

Flick has the arm triangle locked and uses his support arm to cinch it tighter. He then puts his forehead to the mat, getting ear to ear with Gordon, closing off both carotid arteries.

Look at Flick’s choking elbow. It’s so flush with his opponent’s neck that as he pulls it off the floor, his elbow and Gordon’s head lift just off of the mat. There is next to zero space around either Carotid artery and Gordon is forced to submit.

Midway through the card, one Canadian fighter actually gave us two attempts of the same submission. Let’s look at how she self corrected to get the win.

D’arce Choke

Jasmine Jasudavicius won her fight with a d’arce choke in the third round. Before that, she missed a d’arce in the second round. Let’s look at her body positioning to see what she fixed.

_{Jasmine Jasudavicius vs Priscila Cachoeira}

_{Ineffective D’arce Choke}

_{Effective D’arce Choke}

In the d’arce she missed, you can clearly see Cachoeira’s inside elbow flaring out. That means there is space on that side of the neck and no choke.

In the winning sequence, Jasudavicius has locked in the d’arce and her body is collapsing Cachoeira’s trapped arm. There is no space and she suffocates.

It’s important to point out that Jasudavicius stepped over to mount to finish the choke here, but that’s not always necessary. What is necessary is collapsing the trapped arm and getting the choking arm flush with the neck.

Jasudavicius’s teammate was given an opportunity to make a name for themself with a major main card fight. Things didn’t exactly go as planned for this prospect.

A Quick Lesson On Leg Locking In MMA

The subject of last week’s article was making the most of his showcase match-up. Mike Malott was putting a beating on his opponent, Neil Magny. Then all of a sudden he wasn’t.

In the first ten minutes of their fight, Malott stumbled Magny with leg kicks, took him down repeatedly, and even mounted him.

Halfway through the third, it looked like Malott had the fight sealed. Then Magny got on top and Malott treated us to a crystal clear lesson on when to abandon leg locks.

_{Neil Magny vs Mike Malott}

_{Double Ankle Sweep → Failed Inversion}

Malott sweeps Magny with a double ankle sweep.

Malott chases the outside heel hook before inverting towards a knee bar.

Magny floats his hips over to follow Malott and drop to his knees.

Malott ends stuck somewhere between leg drag and outside ashi, getting punched in the face.

Malott knocked Magny over and occupied his hands enough to prevent damage while he was underneath him. His Brazilian jiu-jitsu was working.

Then Malott got greedy, inverted, and tried to follow the leg lock all the way to outside foot position. Unfortunately this left Magny with a strong base to strike from and Malott with no real defensive barriers between him and his foe. Ultimately this culminated in a stoppage win for Magny at the buzzer.

Leg locks are an excellent piece of offense when you have the tactical wherewithal to apply them appropriately. In this case Malott should have abandoned the submission attempt for the other two thirds of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu trinity; sweep or stand-up.

Next week we’ll be taking a look at another fighter who has evolved his game to integrate leg lock attacks into sweeps and knockouts. Before then we’ll be touching on one framework to better understand jiu-jitsu positions and taking a closer look at another stellar undercard performance from UFC 297.

See you then.

Citations & Further Viewing

One of my favorite unsung grappling coaches, Neil Melanson, has one of the best arm triangle explanations I’ve ever seen. Check it out 👇

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