First Things First
Welcome to Open Note Grappling.
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 331 was an instant classic. More than half of the fights ended early, the second one will end up as the Submission of the Year, and the main event was the best flyweight fight I can remember. That’s where we’re going to start but I have a major announcement before we do.
The Jiujitsu Gym Operations Manual
Now let’s get into it.
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Table of Contents
Joshua Van Stomps Alexandre Pantoja
Joshua Van and Alexandre Pantoja put on an instant classic Saturday. The fight had everything.
Drama. The veteran former champion felt he was wronged in their first fight after losing his belt to an early injury.
Grappling. Pantoja took Van down, used body locks to control pace and positioning, and even made his way to the back! But the new champion was able to prevent Pantoja from scoring anything significant by using butterfly guard and under hooks.
Momentum swings. Pantoja shot out to an immediate lead with Van quickly taking it back thanks to better boxing. Pantoja managed crawled back to competitiveness by falling into takedowns.
Striking. Pantoja was doing what he does. Walking forward like a zombie, running into right hands, kicking the body and calves, and eating everything his opponent threw at him.
Alexandre Pantoja’s previous three and a half hours of UFC fight time coalesced into the second knockdown of his UFC career.
Pantoja is reaching out. He hits Van with an inside leg kick. He reaches again and Van drops him with a 1-2. Van follows him down, lands a hard right, and passes straight kesagatame. Then he pushes Pantoja’s arm down into a key lock. Pantoja bucks and squirms out the back. Van stands up and walks away from his highlight reel.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
But that wasn’t the whole fight. This single sequence shows the dynamics of their exchanges better than any other.
Pantoja starts to charge into a right. Van slides away and counters with a left hook. Van starts pressing and hits Pantoja with two lead rights. Pantoja counters Van’s jab with a calf kick. Van scores another lead right, lands a jab, and Pantoja fires a jab back of his own. Van ends by chopping Pantoja’s leg.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
Pantoja wanted to charge forward swinging and force Van to give ground until he fell to the floor. But Van disrupted Pantoja’s rhythm with straight punches, angled away from the former champion’s charges, and led with hard right hands when he wanted to score. Van ended up landing 100 more total strikes than Pantoja.
Let’s take a look at what was and wasn’t working on the floor.
Hooks And Hips
The first exchange of the fight ended with Pantoja on top of Van.
Pantoja throws a 1-2. Van fires back but Pantoja is already ducking into a body lock. He steps in to get hip to hip, lifts Van, and then trips Van as he walks backwards to catch his balance. Van gets his feet inside to play butterfly guard.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
But by the second round most of the takedowns were stopping at attempts.
Pantoja and Van are trading. Pantoja falls into a clinch. Van drops his hands to block knees. Pantoja drops into a shot. Van sprawls. Pantoja gets back up and falls over himself running Van to the fence. Van pushes Pantoja’s head, starts hand fighting, and digs an under hook to turn Pantoja. Pantoja turns him back around. Van digs another under hook before they separate.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
Van did a wonderful job spreading his base and digging under hooks so Pantoja couldn’t whip him around the whole fight. But Pantoja had another problem on his hands. Do you see how far his hips are from Van’s? No way you’re getting a takedown from a body lock when your hips are that far away. At best you’re getting stuffed. Worst you’re getting thrown.
When you’re that far bent over you need to go down and grab a leg.
Pantoja throws a right. Van throws a right and circles out. Pantoja cuts him off and throws a left hook. Van returns a right and Pantoja is dropping on a single leg. Pantoja pulls Van’s leg as he circles away to dump VAn to his butt.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
When Pantoja punched into shots he had more success. But he still wasn’t able to mount significant offense on the floor.
Body Locks, Butterfly Guard, And Wall Walking
Pantoja spent all of his time on top hunting and holding body locks. Occasionally he was able to get around Van’s guard with them.
Pantoja has a body lock. Van is using his under hook to make space to scoot back onto the fence and wall walk. Pantoja stands over Van, pulls his hips back, and steps right into mount.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
But Pantoja didn’t do enough damage nor threaten submissions consistently because of Van was constantly fighting for an under hook.
Pantoja has mounted Van. Van scoots back and gets a right under hook as Pantoja tries to hold position. Pantoja ends up in top half. Van has a left under hook. He uses it to get up as Pantoja pushes his head down. Van ends up standing with a rear body lock.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
Framing, making space, and retaking the space you created with an under hook so you can get up. Van’s bottom game should be MMA grappling 101.
Pantoja did manage to get on Van’s back when he tried getting up in the center of the cage.
Pantoja has his head and under hook on opposite sides. Van digs a left under hook, elevates Pantoja, and goes to single leg x. Pantoja slips his foot out. Van turtles. Pantoja locks a seat belt and falls onto his choking arm to get back mount.
Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja II
This is what I saw happening more and more in the fight but because Van was wall walking his back was on the cage and Pantoja didn’t have opportunities to get to his best position consistently.
It’s worth pointing out that Van’s bottom game is tailor made to be countered by more modern guard passing. His opponents have an opportunity to punch for the near under hook whenever he gets up with the far side under hook.
And once he loses the near side under hook he is open for more modern styles of guard passing.
Here is Jozef Chen knee cutting across Andy Varela’s guard after tripoding up with an under hook and a head block.
Chen has his hands locked with one under hook and one over hook. He’s driving his head into Varela’s chin to flatten him out. Then he pikes up, moves his head towards his right, and knee cuts away from his under hook to pass Varela’s guard.
CJI II: Jozef Chen - Andy Varela
And here Declan Moody demonstrates using a near side under hook to counter your opponent after they claim a far side under hook from half guard.
Moody drops his left hand for a nearside under hook instead of fighting Trey’s left knee shield and frame. This allows Moody to drive his weight over Trey’s torso. Then he pinches Trey’s opposite side shoulder with his head. Now Trey is stuck. Moody finishes passing by crushing Moody’s face under his chest and holding a head and arm.
Declan Moody Demonstrating With Trey Robinson
Van’s win over Pantoja cements his place as Fighter of The Year in my eyes. He’s had two Fight of the Year Contenders and he beat the second best flyweight ever.
The rate he is improving at is unbelievable. Van prevented the best flyweight submission fighter ever from playing their game and was the first to drop him. All at only 24!
Van is special. Be sure to watch and appreciate him while we have him.
Trapping Hands To Fold Elbows
Arman Tsarukyan took a break from streaming to return to the UFC. He was matched up with Mauricio de Lima Santos aka “Ruffy”.
Tsarukyan added an important person to his training camp since he last fought. Kickboxer Giorgio Petrosyan. Many call him the best kickboxer that has ever lived. Petrosyan is famous for superb defense and clever hand traps. He spends much of his fights pushing and grabbing his opponent’s gloves to create safe angles and openings for hard single shots.
Ruffy was riding a two KO win streak into this fight. This fight with Arman hinged on his ability to stay upright.
After four and a half minutes of fighting Ruffy had managed to sting Arman and keep the fight on the feet. Then Tsarukyan found what he was looking for.
Ruffy gets a right under hook. Arman grabs his wrist to fold an elbow over. They separate after a few shots. Arman pressures Ruffy to the fence. He shoots, Ruffy reaches his right in to hand fight, and Arman folds another elbow over. Ruffy is out. Arman sneaks in a second elbow as Ruffy falls.
Arman Tsarukyan - Mauricio Ruffy
I love seeing this. Gripping into elbows is a massively underused technique in my opinion. A couple of years ago I wrote an article about how to best use them with some cool examples. You can read that here 👇
Arman clearly deserves the next title shot. I think he’s the best lightweight in the world right now and the division looks like it’s at an all time high.
Arman, Salahdine Parnasse, and Usman Nurmagomedov are all at the peak of their powers and none of them are in their 30s.
Submission Of The Year
The second fight of the night gave us the most acrobatic maneuver of the whole card. It looks like a shoo-in for Submission Of The Year.
Casey O’Neil calmly escaped Eduarda Moura’s anaconda choke en route to launching into a helicopter arm bar.
Moura has O’Neill’s head and arm. She sits into an anaconda choke. O’Neill pushes on Moura’s hips and secondary elbow to give herself some breathing room. Moura abandons the choke. O'Neill gets her guard back, steps on Moura’s hips, and pulls down on her head to elevates Moura over. Moura reaches to catch herself but O'Neill catches a belly down arm bar instead.
Casey O'Neill - Eduarda Moura
It’s hard enough to hit this in the gi with added friction and grips. I don’t know who is going to beat this for Submission Of The Year.
Free Webinar On How To Run A Gym
My friend Chris Wojcik and I are hosting a free webinar this Friday. Chris has taught, trained, and competed in jiujitsu all over the world. He even has a submission named after him! Now Chris is working on opening his own gym.
I used to consult small business before I opened my own gym. So Chris and I are going to go through the most common problems people have when they open a gym. We’ll discuss onboarding members, the blind spots people miss, and answer questions from the audience.
If you’re curious about turning your passion for training martial arts into a fulfilling career click here to register for the webinar.
And you can reply to this email if you have any specific questions you have.
More To Study
If you want to learn how to pressure pass like Declan Moody click here.
Click here to watch a video on forward shifting to defeat the body lock. And here is a video from the same instructor on how to recounter the forward shift.
Here are a couple of videos about Arman Tsarukyan’s new striking coach, Giorgio Petrosyan:
This video is specifically about his lead hand control.
The highlight video that put Petrosyan on the map for kickboxing casuals like me is right here
The Most Important News You Might Have Missed
Okay last piece of ADCC World Championships 2026. I swear. The blog Grappling Conjecture has published a ton of stats from the event. If you want to see the numbers on what techniques are working at the highest level read this.
Cyril Gane will fight Josh Hokit at UFC 334 for the UFC Heavyweight Title. Click here to see the full card.
Losene Keita is replacing Arnold Allen against Aaron Pico. Keita is the former two weight Oktagon World Champion who recently went viral for this knockout celebration. If he manages to get past Pico the UFC is going to make this guy their next star.
Do you want to build your body like the best grapplers? Click here to access East Austin Strength Training.
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