The ezekiel choke is one of the rarest, and most difficult, submissions to pull off in MMA. Unlike a rear-naked choke or a triangle, you’re unlikely to see a professional MMA fighter attempt to pull off an ezekiel choke in an MMA fight.
When every move you make in an elite MMA fight is a potential mistake, fighters will often avoid going for submissions which they don’t feel confident they can pull off. Their energy is better spent defending against their opponent advancing a position, or going for finishes they believe will be a good expenditure of their energy.
This is why you don’t see many MMA fighters going for an ezekiel choke, and it’s also why it’s so exciting when a fighter does attempt it! It’s like watching someone try to pull off a twister submission.
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What is an ezekiel choke?
So what is an Ezekiel choke? We have Ezequiel Paraguassú to thank for the ezekiel choke. A former olympian and Judo black belt who popularised the technique.
The choke can work as a blood choke or an air choke. It is usually performed from mount, but it can be performed from full guard with particularly skilled practitioners.
The easiest way to explain how this unique choke is pulled off, is to see it in action. Here is a video on how to do an ezekiel choke:
Additionally, who better to learn about this submission move, than from the ezekiel choke UFC master himself, Aleksei Oleinik:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6P8qf1kdRIE
The only ezekiel chokes in UFC history
When you talk about ezekiel submissions in the UFC, there’s one man who comes to mind, Aleksei Oleinik. Aleksei is one of the greatest Russian MMA fighters of all time. Oleinik is also the first MMA fighter to win a fight via ezekiel choke in UFC history. He also holds the only 2 Ezequiel choke finishes in UFC history.
As his nickname suggests “The Boa Constrictor”, Oleinik is a BJJ specialist who holds over 40 wins in MMA by submission. He has an elite skillset in grappling and usually finds a way to work a choke / hold and force his opponent to submit.
The move was first used successfully in 2017. Aleksei managed to submit Viktor Pesta with the technique in the very first round of their heavyweight bout.
You can see history being made in the below video, from 1:15 minutes in:
After making UFC history as the 1st MMA practitioner to pull of this unusual submission, Aleksei clearly got a taste for the move, as he then pulled off the 2nd Ezekiel choke in UFC history 3 fights later against Junior Albini.
There is only one other fight which might possibly be called a finish by ezekiel choke and that was Remco Pardoel vs Alberto Cerro Leon at UFC 2. However, it was not called at the time of the event (probably due to how uncommon the choke is) and it’s still debated whether it was an ezekiel choke or a forearm choke.
