The Scottish Twister and the Capsule Lock: How BJJ Is Rewriting UFC Finishes in 2026

Two submissions most practitioners have only ever seen in competition footage showed up inside the Octagon within weeks of each other in 2026, and the grappling community is paying close attention.

The Scottish Twister at UFC Vegas 119 in Las Vegas

On June 20, 2026, the UFC Apex in Las Vegas hosted UFC Vegas 119, and in the featherweight division Murtazali Magomedov needed just 71 seconds to produce the submission that MMA Fighting would name its Submission of the Midyear. Magomedov, fighting on his UFC debut after coming through the Contender Series, submitted Melsik Baghdasaryan with a Scottish twister, a technique so rare that only three fighters in the history of the UFC had ever landed it before: Chan Sung Jung in 2011, Bryce Mitchell in 2019, and Da'Mon Blackshear in 2021. Magomedov became the fourth.

The Scottish twister works from a body-lock position. The attacker gains control of both of the opponent's legs and pulls them in opposing directions while simultaneously driving their body across the opponent's back, creating torque that twists the upper and lower halves against each other. It is extraordinarily difficult to set up in a live fight because it requires both control of the legs and the ability to drive across the back without being defended or rolled. The technique traces its roots to catch wrestling but has been refined and spread through no-gi grappling circles, where it appears occasionally in competition and almost never in professional MMA.

What made Magomedov's finish particularly striking to the BJJ and MMA communities is that he was not widely known as a grappler heading into the fight. Magomedov carried a reputation primarily as a striker, which made the fluency and timing of his twister all the more impressive. His debut illustrated a broader truth about the current generation of UFC fighters: the technical floor for grappling, even among athletes whose primary identity is as strikers, is substantially higher than it was a decade ago.

The Capsule Lock: A First in UFC History

Six weeks before Magomedov's twister, on May 16, 2026 at UFC Vegas 117, Alice Ardelean made her own piece of UFC history. The 34-year-old strawweight, who built a substantial social media following alongside her fighting career, submitted Polyana Viana with a capsule lock, the first time the technique had ever been used to finish a fight inside the Octagon.

The capsule lock functions similarly to a modified calf slicer or knee separator. Ardelean trapped Viana's legs in a crossed position and compressed the calf muscle into the back of the knee, generating joint pressure and muscular crushing force until Viana tapped. The technique is known in BJJ competition circles but is rarely seen in professional MMA because it requires precise leg entanglement that most opponents actively defend as soon as it is attempted. Ardelean's ability to establish the position and apply the finish cleanly in a live UFC bout reflects real depth of grappling study.

MMAmania named the capsule lock its Submission of the Year through June 2026, a recognition earned in a field that included Magomedov's twister, a Suloev stretch from Asu Almabayev at UFC Baku on June 27, and other notable finishes from the first half of the year. The recognition of the capsule lock as the most impressive finish through the midpoint of 2026 reflects community acknowledgment that Ardelean's technique was genuinely novel: not just a well-executed submission, but one that had never appeared at this level of professional competition before.

Why These Finishes Matter for the BJJ Community

The appearance of Scottish twisters and capsule locks in the UFC is not just a collection of interesting highlight clips. It represents something meaningful about how the sport of jiu-jitsu is evolving and how that evolution is feeding directly into professional MMA. A decade ago, even basic leg locks were considered exotic in the Octagon. Today, heel hooks, kneebars, and toe holds appear with regularity, and the most advanced competitive grappling techniques are filtering into professional MMA within a few years of their development in competition settings.

The mechanism for this transfer is instruction and competition exposure. Fighters who compete at the highest levels of no-gi submission grappling, in ADCC qualifiers and major invitationals, are building a vocabulary of positions and techniques that eventually shows up when they compete in MMA. Coaches who study leg-lock systems and body-torque submissions in detail are training fighters who carry that knowledge into the cage. The Scottish twister and the capsule lock did not spontaneously appear in the UFC. They were studied, drilled, and prepared by fighters and coaches who understood that expanding the submission vocabulary creates genuine competitive advantages.

For practitioners training in Las Vegas, these UFC performances are a direct reminder that the techniques being taught in jiu-jitsu classes are not theoretical curiosities reserved for elite competition. They are real tools that skilled grapplers are finding ways to apply against top-level opposition. Every rare submission that appears in the Octagon makes the case for deeper, more technical training rather than drilling only the most common positions.

Training in Las Vegas After Watching the Octagon

The techniques that made headlines at UFC Vegas 117 and UFC Vegas 119 are not reserved for professional fighters. Body-lock positions, leg entanglement entries, and the mechanical principles behind twisters and capsule locks can be studied and developed by practitioners at any level who put in the time and train under coaches who understand these systems. Las Vegas has a strong training scene for exactly this kind of technical work, with gyms that take both the competitive and the foundational aspects of jiu-jitsu seriously.

If the level of grappling sophistication on display in the UFC this year has sparked your interest in trying a class or stepping up your current training, the best time to start is now. Come try a class and see what that level of technical jiu-jitsu looks like from the inside.

Five Rare Grappling Techniques Every BJJ Student Should Know

The UFC's 2026 highlight reel has introduced many fans to techniques they had never seen before. Here is a quick primer on five rare submissions worth studying.

1. Scottish Twister: A body-lock control position that torques the upper and lower body in opposite directions. Requires precise leg control and the ability to drive across the opponent's back. Only four fighters have ever landed it in UFC competition, making it one of the rarest finishes in Octagon history.
2. Capsule Lock: A leg-entanglement submission that traps crossed legs and compresses the calf against the back of the knee. Functions similarly to a calf slicer and generates significant joint and muscular pressure. Now appears on UFC highlight reels for the first time after Ardelean's finish in May 2026.
3. Suloev Stretch: A kneebar variation where the attacker traps the opponent in a kneeling turtle position and applies knee pressure from behind. Named after early MMA grappler Amar Suloev and seen at UFC Baku in June 2026 when Almabayev submitted Johnson.
4. Truck Position: The setup position for the twister and several other body-lock attacks. Achieved by getting behind a kneeling opponent and controlling their hips from a top-side angle. A core concept in modern leg-lock and twister systems and worth understanding before attempting the submissions that flow from it.
5. Banana Split: A leg-lock that hyperextends both hip joints simultaneously by pulling one leg toward the chest and pushing the other toward the mat. A signature technique of advanced no-gi grappling and one of the most uncomfortable positions in submission wrestling when applied with proper mechanics.

← More from the Las Vegas Jiu Jitsu blog