Triangle Choke

Neck95 Finishes · 5.5% of All Submissions

Total Finishes

Share of All Subs

5.5%

Most by One Fighter

Peak Year

2006

Year by Year

26 Years with a Finish

Statistical overview

The fifth most used submission in the UFC

Every figure below covers complete years only, from 1994 through 2025. The current year is left out until it is finished, because a part-season is both a smaller sample and a lopsided one — this section rewrites itself each January.

94finishes

5.7%of all 1,644 submissions

#5of 39 distinct submissions

2006peak year, 8 finishes

How’s it trending?

−60%down on its long-run rate

Across the last 1,000 men’s fights the triangle choke finished 5 against 12.5 its earlier rate predicts — 0.50 per 100 fights against 1.25 before. That clears our threshold for a confirmed shift: a move this size on these numbers is not something chance produces. Less of a threat than the record suggests, which is a reason to move defensive time off it rather than onto it.

And over the long run

6.9%of submissions1994–2020

2.5%of submissionslast five years, 2021–2025

The triangle choke first appears in 1994. That is a real difference — 4.5 points less of the modern game than it used to be, and big enough that chance does not explain it.

That is a real difference — 4.5 points less of the modern game than it used to be, and big enough that chance does not explain it.

2.5% against 6.9% · 11 of 448 · 95% range −6.5 to −2.5 points

95% range −87% to −3% · 2024-06-28 to 2026-09-19, men’s divisions. Measured as the rate at which the triangle choke ends a fight, not its share of submissions — share moves whenever the overall submission rate moves.

When does the finish come?

53.2%Round 1

30.9%Round 2

16.0%Round 3

0.0%Round 4

0.0%Round 5

triangle choke every other submission

53.2% of these finishes come in the first round, against 51.0% for every other submission. That looks like a gap, but on 94 it is well inside what chance alone would produce. Treat the two as the same. Within the round itself the median comes at 2:51 against 2:52 — 1 seconds earlier.

Does weightclass matter?

Welterweight and middleweight7.2%35 of 488

Featherweight and lightweight6.3%28 of 446

Light heavyweight and heavyweight4.2%10 of 240

Flyweight and bantamweight6.0%14 of 235

Women's divisions1.8%3 of 168

The triangle choke is at its weakest in women's divisions at 1.8%, 4.4 points below the rest of the sport, interval −6.7 to −2.0.

The men’s and women’s divisions

Across the women’s divisions the triangle choke accounts for 1.8% of submissions — 3 of 168 — against 6.2% everywhere else. That is a real difference — 4.4 points less of the women's game, and big enough that chance does not explain it. That said, the women’s sample is 168 submissions in total, so it moves on a handful of fights in a way the men’s does not.

Anything out of the ordinary

One night

2 in a single evening at UFC Fight Night: Stout vs Fisher

2007. A card that size predicts 0.2 of them; it produced 2. Nothing links the fights on a card beyond the night they share, so a cluster like this is a coincidence worth seeing rather than a cause worth explaining.

See the card →

A missing year

2021: not once, all year

The seventh blank year in the 32 since it first appeared, and the first since 2003. That year’s submission volume predicted 4.2. The longest it has ever gone quiet is 3 years running.

See 2021 →