UFC 129's "Submission of the Night": Pablo Garza

UFC 129, as a whole, was a great event to witness all in all.

Well, that is if you caught the Pablo Garza and Yves Jabouin bout.

One of the larger featherweight fighters in the division, Garza would seem to be the obvious favorite in his bout with Yves, though size doesn’t necessarily matter—or does it? Regardless of the trivial questions, in the short amount of time that these two athletes had to work with, they both put on an impressive performance, though Garza inevitably got the upper hand of his the “Tristar” affiliated fighter, who trains alongside notables Rory MacDonald, Kenny Florian, and welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.

In the end, Pablo managed to pull out a gem of a submission from his bag of tricks which inevitably pocketed him some extra cash once the bout was said and done with.

The action was tight in the beginning, with Pablo having a hard time in finding his range against the wily and spry Yves. At 6’1, Garza held a significant 5-inch height advantage over Jabouin, who was able to find his rythm in the bout from the jump. In the beginning, Jabouin cracked Garza with criplling leg kicks which twice tripped “The Scarecrow” to the canvas.

Thinking on the fly, Pablo managed to clinch up with Yves long enough to hop up for a flying triangle choke. With one lef over the shoulder, once the fight hit the canvas, Garza was able to cinch up the hold. It was a struggle though, as Yves hung tough throughout the surprise submission, evening surviving while mounted. However, Garza rolled his back to the canvas, and torqued the hold to eventually earn the tapout.

At UFC 129, which already marked a historic event for the organization as they sold out 55,000 tickets at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada—Garza took it to the next level by making his own history with either the first or the first in a long time flying triangle choke pulled off in the UFC–feel free to debate with me on that one because even that I am not one-hundred percent on, but I’m willing to debate it.

Garza’s only competition was Canadian Jason MacDonald, who needed less than two-minutes in the first-round to earn his own triangle choke finish. However, Pablo’s impressive acrobatics likely earned him the evenings “Submission of the Night” award and the additional $129,000 for his efforts.