Bia Mesquita submitted Macy Chiasson with a rear-naked choke at 3:23 of Round 1 at UFC 334 on Saturday. The finish moved her past Ronda Rousey for the most submissions in UFC women’s bantamweight history. The two had been tied, and MMA Fighting reported that the tap put Mesquita alone at the top of that list. The UFC’s own account wrote that “The Lady Goat” is “in a category of her own.” The record is hers outright now.
The Brazilian is now 9-0 as a pro and 4-0 in the UFC. Chiasson drops to 10-7 (8-7 UFC). It’s her fourth straight loss, which is a rough stretch for a fighter who’d been a fixture among the bantamweight contenders.
Chiasson’s plan was obvious from the opening bell. Cageside Press described her circling the Octagon, trying to land something and leave before Mesquita could get a grip on her. That’s a reasonable idea against a multiple-time jiu-jitsu world champion. The problem is you have to be faster than her, and you have to be faster every single exchange. Mesquita kept walking her down, and once the clinch showed up she got deep on a body lock, worked to the back and dragged Chiasson to the mat.
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Chiasson tried to recover from deep half guard. Mesquita answered with heavy ground-and-pound and stayed patient. She picked her shots instead of flailing, and she shut down each escape attempt until the back opened up again. She flattened Chiasson out and landed a nasty elbow, then followed with left hands. Chiasson covered her head to survive the strikes, and that exposed her neck. Mesquita slid the arm under and finished. Aaron Bronsteter put it bluntly on X: Mesquita “makes easy work of Chiasson.”
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Mesquita already has her sights on what comes next. She told Joe Rogan in the cage that she planned to sit cageside later in the night to watch bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison face Amanda Nunes. It’s hard to find a reason to make her wait. The 135-pound division is thin, and she has now beaten a veteran contender without taking a meaningful shot.
Quick take: That finish came from one moment, and I’d show it to anybody learning back control. Chiasson covered up because the elbow and the lefts were coming, which is the natural thing to do. Covering up lifts the chin, though, and Mesquita had her choking arm there before Chiasson’s hands could come back down. The ground-and-pound was the setup for the strangle all along. Mesquita doesn’t use strikes to win rounds on the scorecards. She uses them to make you give up your neck. Whoever walks out of Harrison vs. Nunes with the belt should start drilling hand fighting from flat on their stomach, because that’s where Mesquita is going to put them.
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