A Slick Finish: Mackens Semerzier Triangles Wagnney Fabiano

I imagine that I’ll have to say something about the Cerrone vs. Henderson decision tomorrow, but as that will be pretty time consuming, it’s worth mentioning that Curtis was right and his boy Mackens Semerzier (4-0 MMA) submitted one of the top featherweights in the world in Wagnney Fabiano (12-2 MMA, #3 IWMMAR).

The submission was absolutely everything a triangle as defense of the groundnpound should be. It was quick, it was technical and it was set up very effectively, so I figured that it was worth giving a little insight into what about that submission really deserves recognition.

If you go and watch the video of the fight, there are a few things that really stick out about Semerzier’s setup:

1. When Fabiano stands up, Semerzier looks to use the up-kick. Against a standing opponent, the up-kick can be devastating (even land a knockout), but the best function it served for Semerzier is that it kept Fabiano from controlling his legs and, as a result, kept him from passing the guard.
2. He grabbed on to Fabiano’s wrist and pulled it across. This is a really slick move because it served two functions. The first is obvious in that in order to finish the triangle, the arm needs to be across, cutting off Fabiano’s right carotid artery. The second is that it stopped Fabiano’s elbow from boxing out Mack’s leg. As Fabiano was looking to pass guard, if you look you can see him connecting the elbow to the knee, which is a classic Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu method for preventing your opponent from reclaiming the guard. By opening that up, Mack was able to secure the triangle position.
3. Semerzier shot his hips up to latch on the triangle. A lot of times in MMA you see a fighter pull his opponent down into the triangle, and he has to work really hard to break his opponent’s posture even though he has one of his opponent’s arms in and one out, because he doesn’t have the choked locked up. Semerzier gets his hips right up against Fabiano’s collar bone and that makes it really easy to lock up the submission.

The last thing that Fabiano does is after he locks up the triangle, and this is really something that you see a lot of guys forget about in MMA competitions and grappling matches.

Once Semerzier gets the triangle on, he moves to hook Fabiano’s leg. This serves two functions. The first is that it prevents the slam, but that wasn’t really a threat at that point. The other is that it turns his hips so that his right leg, which is pressing into Fabiano’s left carotid artery, is leg pressing down on the neck. If you watch guys like top grappler Ryan Hall, who really know the dynamics of the triangle, you can see that they know how to finish the triangle choke by changing the angle to really make it devastating.

All around, an essentially perfect triangle and a great win for Mackens Semerzier.