Triangle Chokes are among the most fundamental submissions in BJJ and because of this, have been incredibly prevalent all throughout the history of MMA and the UFC. The very first Triangle Choke happened all the way back at UFC 2 and came to us courtesy of Pancrase veteran Jason DeLucia shortly before he tapped to the eventual winner, Royce Gracie in the second round of the tournament. As an aside, it’s insane to think that heelhooks actually came into the UFC before Triangle Chokes did. The first example in the above collection of the best Triangle Chokes in UFC history comes from the man equally well known for his slick D’arce Chokes, Tony Ferguson, when he won his Interim Lightweight Championship by tapping out Kevin Lee back at UFC 216.
After this comes two examples from Nate Diaz, including the legendary moment that he flexed his muscles and swore at Kurt Pellegrino, all while choking him out. This is just one of many examples of slick submissions coming from the Diaz brothers, both Cesar Gracie black belts with nearly 70 professional MMA fights and 19 submission victories between them. We also get to see some fantastic lightning-quick transitions from Carlos Newton way back at UFC 17 when he tapped out Bob Gilstrap before losing to Dan Henderson in the UFC Middleweight Tournament. It was only three years before Newton would end up winning the UFC Welterweight Championship, before another Triangle Choke backfired when he was slammed into oblivion by Matt Hughes at UFC 34.
