Finish of the Week – Brutal Taekwondo switch kick KO from Indonesian MMA champ

One Pride MMA had a memorable knockout on its main event.

We’ve had a lengthy break, but with the regional and international MMA events rolling again in 2021, it’s time to bring back our recurring “Finish of the Week” award. A lot of interesting moves and crazy finishes tend to slip through the cracks as most people naturally pay more attention to bigger events, so this is designed to highlight some of the wild moments you may have missed.

FINISH OF THE WEEK: TAEKWONDO SWITCH KICK KNOCKOUT

2021’s first Finish of the Week honors goes to Billy Pasulatan. The One Pride MMA champion from Indonesia not only got revenge and won his rematch with Brando Mamana, he did so in emphatic fashion. The Taekwondo-based fighter landed a perfectly placed switch kick that immediate put his lights out.

Watch him defend his strawweight title in style below:

HONORABLE MENTION: HEAD AND ARM CHOKE FROM KESA GATAME

An honorable mention goes all the way from a prelim bout in Omsk, Russia, where Konstantin Bulygin finished Vyacheslav Meshcherkin to improve to 2-1. While he’s still only a few years into his MMA career, Bulygin pulled off a slick submission at MMA Series 25.

He looked to have applied a typical arm triangle at first, before transitioning and choking him out cold from a relatively uncommon finishing position.

While the commentator questioned the pressure you can generate from a Kesa Gatame position, finishing head and arm chokes from there is actually pretty effective. Not only are both arteries on the neck blocked like your typical head and arm choke, it’s a particularly nasty submission if you add the amount of weight on the opponent’s chest, plus the head being crunched down to put pressure on the trachea.

While not exactly the same, catch-wrestler and former UFC champ Josh Barnett finished BJJ champ Dean Lister with a similar head and arm choke in the past as well.