Tito's Spiral ride to head and arm choke at Bellator

Pretty sweet wrestling by Tito in his fight over the weekend! Minus the size advantage and Schlemenko's lack of grappling experience.

Tito fought for the clinch, worked into a deep underhook and drove for a far side knee tap that he turned into a slip or duck under, ending up on Schlemenko's back on the ground. Instead of putting the hooks in, Tito hit a nice spiral ride to flatten him out and as Schlemenko turned to his back in an attempt to regain a half guard it was the perfect setup Tito needed to lock in the head and arm finish.

He said he drilled this situation continuously in his training camp and was his game plan for finishing the fight.

Wondering what people thought of it and for the BJJ crowd do you have much experience vs the Spiral Ride and if so how do you defend vs it?

 

haven't seen the fight, but i try to keep my nearside turtle and kick my far side leg to try to get rid of the arm. that, or just get my hips really low and get a good base.

 

hip heist to singles/doubles. gets my back taken a fair bit though if i dont immediately turn and face after the hip heist, but at least im not getting my back taken right away when guys use the Ryan Hall style back takes from the spiral ride.

HOW GOOD WAS CHANDLER BROOKS?!?!? Man. Great MMA wrestling.

 

Yeah, Bellator was on point with all 3 of those fights! Great deal for them on that first PPV!

 

I was fucking laughing hard when that happened. Schlemenko legit got into referees position and didnt move a muscle. Tito then takes the correct collegiate starting position, belly and elbow, then runs a HS style spiral to the choke. It almost looked fake. Who the fuck wouldnt even throw a punch from top in that position? Hendo Ko'd Fedor from there and Tito was looking for nearfall.

 

That was some "M-1 level grappling" by Schlemenko there. I had a feeling that if Tito got on top of him it was over. But I figured that with Tito basically fighting in slo-mo at this point in his career, it wouldn't happen. He scored a lazy knee tap and it worked, and the arm triangle itself was nice, so kudos to him for that.

 

Gif?

 

that's a pretty big thing to minus.

 

The knee tap didn't eve really work as he had to shuck/slip past like duck under. The knee tap missed.

 

^ please

 

gif or you're lying.

 

Only gif I've seen starts when the choke is fully locked in. Was a beautiful blend of wrestling and submission wrestling/BJJ tho.