Bullying People With Body Locks At UFC 296

Table of Contents

• UFC 296 Recap

• Leon Edwards Uses His Wrestling To Prove a Point

• Alexandre Pantoja Shows New Poise

• Shavkat Rakhmonov Bullies Stephen Thompson

• Submission Finishes On The Early Prelims

  • Tagir Ulanbekov’s Frustrating Offense

  • Arianne Lipski’s Arm Bar

UFC 296 Recap

The UFC's last pay-per-view of 2023 just finished. The fights were fun and tense, but the lead-up was basically only the latter.

Before fight week started, there were several selling points. The audience was teased with Colby Covington's potential last crack at the welterweight title, the start of Alexandre Pantoja's flyweight run, and Shavkat Rakmonov's return. By the time the fights actually started, most of the discourse surrounded Covington's decision to make light of Leon Edwards's murdered father.

Understandably, Edwards took Covington's verbal assaults personally and decided to prove that he was better than Covington everywhere. This meant Edwards would indulge Covington's grappling, outwrestle him, and generally dominate him wherever the fight went. Let's start there.

Leon Edwards Uses His Wrestling To Prove a Point

The majority of the fight was fought on Leon Edwards's terms. He stabbed Colby Covington from the outside with punches and kicks for 15 minutes before Covington really made a consistent concerted effort to take him down.

While Edwards avoided many of the initial takedown attempts, he lost some of the longer scrambles. Eventually in round four, Covington ended up on Edwards’s back.

Covington was doing a good job keeping his hooks under Edwards's feet, but with no locked hands nor grips, he was easily shaken off the top by the champion.

In the fifth round, Edwards really decided to prove his point. Using one of Covington’s earlier takedown attempts, Edwards put Covington on the floor and started to take his back.

We've been seeing a lot of body locks across MMA and BJJ for the past few years. This has been a natural answer to the defensive wrestling and standing up off the bottom in both sports. If you can lock your hands around someone, generally it’s pretty hard to shake you off.

You'll see athletes run to the rear body lock to get back mount and attack rear naked chokes. The simple but tricky takedown finish Edwards used can give you a new way to use the body lock when your opponent whizzers, and you can't get all the way around your opponent.

When the two hit the floor and Edwards tried to take his back, he lacked diagonal control and both hooks. Covington took the opportunity to scoot down and out to start escaping. Edwards used the new space to attempt a more flashy finish.

The submission attempt failed in part because Edwards did not control Covington's arm. This allowed Covington to turn his arm and wiggle out of the position. We'll touch on this dynamic later from an earlier fight.

Ultimately, Edwards cruised to a decision that was disputed by no one except Covington. Hopefully that's just part of his character as well.

Before Edwards and Covington squared off, the co-main event ended with another clear decision.

Alexandre Pantoja Shows New Poise

Alexandre Pantoja began his reign as flyweight champion by rematching surging Brandon Royval. The story of the fight ended up being about how much Pantoja has improved his control during passing.

Going into the rematch, we discussed how Pantoja won the first fight and where he had the most room to improve. You can read that here.

Pantoja has an iron chin, brick hands, and constrictor-like control from back mount. Everything else can devolve to brawling.

Pantoja looked vastly improved from his last fight against Brandon Moreno. We saw a patient Pantoja wear Royval down from top position for the majority of their 25-minute interaction.

Every week that goes on, half guard looks to be more and more important in modern MMA. Not only does the position allow you to hit and sit on your opponent, but because you're on one of their legs, they don't have an immediate avenue to turn, stand, and escape. This can make fighters desperately overreact and give up submission opportunities. By the fourth round, Pantoja gladly took one.

We need to give credit where credit is due. Royval escaped every one of Pantoja's submission attempts, slapped him around with straight punches, and looked ready for another five rounds after the fight ended. Here Royval escapes mount and immediately starts hitting Pantoja at the end of the fifth.

While it looks like Pantoja has the winner of Brandon Moreno and Amir Albazi, Royval is going to be out of contention for a while. He's clearly lost twice to Pantoja but he still makes exciting fights. A fight against the loser of Alex Perez - Muhammad Mokaev might be best for his ranking next. A fight against Mokaev could be a good opportunity to shore up his defensive grappling as well.

Midway through the main card, we got to watch the return of perhaps the most dangerous fighter in MMA, Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Shavkat Rakhmonov Bullies Stephen Thompson

Shavkat Rakhmonov is becoming a larger-than-life character. Even when he underwhelms, he overwhelms.

The towering Kazakhstani welterweight hardly speaks, walks to the cage wearing the skin of animals he's hunted, and finishes every professional fight he's been in thus far. This one was no different.

This sequence is a good example of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. If Thompson stays where he is, he runs the risk of getting choked, if he lays back to guard, he'll get wailed on more, and, turtling like he did, gave Rakhmonov an avenue to the back. Before Rakhmonov got that rear naked choke, he was suffocating Thompson with top pressure and steady ground and pound.

Good grapplers make escapes look like traps, but the best grapplers make all avenues of movement end in more damage or worse positions. Rakhmonov is a master of integrating ground and pound into submission threats. If you move, he'll snatch a submission, but if you stay in one spot, he'll just hit you until you decide enough is enough and give him a path to a better position or the submission. Before Rakhmonov got his finish, he used the behind the back grip to threaten another rear naked choke.

Rakhmonov and welterweight are in an excellent place right now. Including Rakhmonov, there are four rising contenders, and the oldest is only 31. Rakhmonov has a good claim to be the next in line position, but, allegedly, he also needs surgery to repair a training camp injury.

Yeah, I know. Even when this dude needs surgery, he dominates contenders.

Rakhmonov's injury might be a promotional blessing in disguise. If Rakhmonov sits, that allows the long overdue Belal Muhammad to fight for the title. The winner can take on Rakhmonov when he returns. Good luck to whoever that is.

Submission Finishes On The Early Prelims

Tagir Ulanbekov’s Frustrating Offense

While the main card's grappling highlights mainly came from interesting points of control, the prelims gave us some cool submission finishes. The early prelims ended with another flyweight fight with Tagir Ulanbekov taking on Cody Durden. The fight ended up being an Ulanbekov offensive showcase.

When Durden did have success, he would end up running into clinches with Ulanbekov. Ulanbekov had an answer with simple sagging trips to take back the initiative.

Shortly after this trip Ulanbekov climbed to Durden's back to secure the rear naked choke finish.

Ulanbekov's game looks incredibly frustrating for his opponents. He's long, so he can hurt you from the outside. When you close the distance, he'll just trip or throw you to take back control. Then, if you give him any room on the floor, he'll jump on chokes. Matching him and Matt Schnell next could be an awesome action fight for the flyweights.

Last but not least, the first women's fight of the night gave us the best submission.

Arianne Lipski’s Arm Bar

Arianne Lipski came into the UFC nicknamed "The Queen of Violence" and never really lived up to the moniker. Most of her fights were relatively low output and by 2023 she was 3-5 in the UFC. Since then, Lipski has won three in a row, including this weekend's excellent arm bar finish.

Taking an arm here is tricky. Your opponent's shoulder is high and your legs aren't really controlling your opponent's posture. This means your opponent can often just rotate their shoulder and escape, similar to how Colby Covington turned his arm to get free from Leon Edwards.

When Lipski pinched her legs around O’Neill's upper arm, she prevented O’Neill from reclaiming shoulder position to escape. Seriously slick work in a split second.

Long article today because there were just so many cool grappling sequences this weekend. The fights will now start to slow down through the end of the year. We might not have as many matches to cover, but there are several incredibly important stories to cover about the landscape of MMA as a whole. See y'all next week.