Fighters Only

Issue 160

November 2017

Jordan Rinaldi pulls off an unexpected submission from the dead.

Jordan Rinaldi has every right to feel hard done by. There was no fight of the night bonuses handed out at the UFC’s latest trip to Mexico City, leaving four lots of $50,000 to be handed out for the performances of the night.

When the North Carolina native pulled off a Von Flue choke, which was only the fourth of its kind ever seen in the UFC, he thought he was a shoo-in for a significant slice of extra scratch.

“I was trying to figure out how it was possible that I didn’t get it,” he tells. “The one guy who did get a submission had a rear naked choke. That was just frustrating. Hopefully, they’ll send me a nice check!”

‘All Day’ can console himself with the fact he at least secured his first victory in the Octagon by making Alvaro Herrera tap, and with it, a richly-deserved win bonus.

Despite being such an uncommon occurrence in the UFC, Rinaldi had targeted this move ahead of the fight. He knew, even if he was in a dangerous situation, he could engineer a fight-finishing position.

“I told my team before he’d be a sucker for it because he’d dive for the guillotine. Any time someone goes for his hips – immediately to the choke. When I got to that leg and he started wrapping that up, I thought, that’s not tight at all…

"I knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold that long so I gritted my teeth and said hey, we’re going down with this ship.”

SETTING UP

He was kind of pinned up against the cage and he left his arm in there.

IN DEEP

I got my hand free from the arm-in guillotine and thought, his arm is still in there.

That’s not OK. I’m going to make you pay.