#4 Pablo Garza vs. Yves Jabouin – UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields – 04/30/11
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The UFC’s debut in Toronto, UFC 129 was one of the most loaded cards in MMA history. Two title fights; Georges St-Pierre vs. Jake Shields and Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick – were headlining the show, while Randy Couture vs. Lyoto Machida was only billed third.
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Featured elsewhere were names such as Rory MacDonald, Nate Diaz, Benson Henderson and Jake Ellenberger. It’s easy to understand why a prelim featuring WEC imports Pablo Garza and Yves Jabouin wasn’t receiving much fanfare.
This was Canadian fighter Jabouin’s UFC debut and while Garza had actually delivered another highlight-reel finish a few months prior in his debut – a flying knee KO of Fredson Paixao that left the Brazilian leaving on a stretcher – my guess was that Zuffa was looking to hand Jabouin a home-country win.
After all, he’d gone toe-to-toe in the WEC with top contenders like Hominick and Raphael Assuncao, while Garza had failed to even qualify for TUF 12.
The fight began as the Canadian fans were expecting. Jabouin was at a reach disadvantage against the lanky Garza but it didn’t seem to matter as he went to work with leg kicks, taking Garza off his feet on two occasions and knocking his mouthpiece out with a punch. It was clear that Garza was painfully outgunned on the feet, and so ‘The Scarecrow’ decided to switch things up.
Rather than shoot in for a takedown on his shorter opponent, Garza went instead for a clinch, and from there he leapt into the air, threw his legs up into position and slapped on an ultra-rare flying triangle choke. Jabouin dropped to the ground, still trapped in the hold, and after a few elbows to the head from Garza he was forced to tap out.
For me, this would’ve been the best submission of 2011, had it not been for the Korean Zombie’s legendary twister just over a month beforehand. Garza never did go on to anything great – in fact, he was involved in the antitrust lawsuit against the UFC in 2014 – but nobody can take this amazing submission win away from him.
