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#2 Aleksei Oleinik vs. Junior Albini – UFC 224 – 05/12/2018
UFC 224 had plenty of spectacular finishes, including one of the year’s best knockouts in the form of Lyoto Machida’s front kick KO of Vitor Belfort.
The show also contained one of the year’s most memorable submissions, as somehow, veteran Aleksei Oleinik managed to pull off the ultra-rare Ezekiel choke for the second time in his UFC career, tapping out prospect Junior Albini in under two minutes of the first round.
The choke is of course incredibly rare in MMA because it usually requires a gi to pull off, but clearly that isn’t the case with Oleinik.
When ‘The Boa Constrictor’ used the same choke to submit Viktor Pesta in 2017, he did it after Pesta took him to the ground. This time he had such confidence in his abilities that he wrapped up Albini’s head and neck while standing before pulling half-guard to finish the submission.
Quite how Oleinik manages to submit top-level foes inside the UFC with such a choke is one of the mysteries of the sport, but it’s hard to deny that he’s quite brilliant at it.
The best part for Oleinik? He managed to pull off an almost-as-memorable submission of Mark Hunt a few months after this – and has now broken into the Heavyweight top ten at the age of 41.
