Murtazali Magomedov's Scottish Twister Is a BJJ Throwback
It is not every Saturday night that the UFC gives the BJJ world a moment to actually own, but UFC Vegas 119 served one up. Featherweight prospect Murtazali Magomedov, debuting on the biggest stage…
It is not every Saturday night that the UFC gives the BJJ world a moment to actually own, but UFC Vegas 119 served one up. Featherweight prospect Murtazali Magomedov, debuting on the biggest stage of his career, took the back of Melsik Baghdasaryan and rolled into a Scottish twister to force a tap. It is, by some distance, the most unusual finish the promotion has seen in 2026 — and it has the Jiu Jitsu corner of the internet doing what it does best, which is arguing about names, lineages, and who taught what to whom.
For the average BJJ player, the more useful conversation is the one underneath the highlight. The twister itself is the flashy part. The back take is the lesson.
What actually happened
According to BJJEE's report, Baghdasaryan came out the way the betting favourite usually does — body kicks, a few clean strikes early, looking to use his greater Octagon experience to make Magomedov fight at the wrong distance. The shift came on a single takedown. Once Magomedov was in top control, the trajectory of the fight inverted, because almost every gym in Dagestan trains the back like it is the only finishing position that exists. Magomedov got there, sank both hooks, and started building the spinal crank.
The finish was a modified twister. As Baghdasaryan turned in to escape — the textbook reaction to a back take — Magomedov rotated with him and locked the legs and torso into the bent-neck position that defines the family. Speaking to media afterwards, Magomedov said it was not a happy accident: "He came here to Las Vegas recently, a month ago, and this is exactly what we were working on here." He also offered the strategic logic in a single line — Baghdasaryan "is more famous for his striking technique, so I knew that I could do it with him." Pre-fight scouting, fight-camp drilling, finishing position chosen on purpose. That is high-level Brazilian Jiu Jitsu chess, and it earned him a UFC bonus-worthy moment.
The twister has been a BJJ open secret for twenty years
The twister is older than most casual MMA fans realise. It is a wrestling move that Eddie Bravo brought into the Jiu Jitsu vocabulary in the early 2000s by way of 10th Planet, sitting alongside the rubber guard and lockdown as a signature of the system. The move has stayed rare in MMA because the entry is unusual: you need the back, or the truck, or some other position most strikers never voluntarily concede.
The "Scottish" tag is a more recent quirk of nicknaming culture — we have already seen the "Swedish twister" enter the BJJ lexicon via Eddie Bravo's recent instructional work. The names are fun. The mechanics are the part worth keeping: a controlled rotation of the upper spine against a locked-out lower body, same compression regardless of whose flag is on the YouTube thumbnail.
What this means for the average BJJ practitioner
The first read is the obvious one. Get to the back. The twister, the rear-naked, the bow-and-arrow, the body triangle — every finish a back-take generates is a finish you could not have generated from any other position. If you are at white or blue belt and looking for a single position to obsess over for a year, the back is still it. Magomedov did not invent anything in Vegas; he just collected on a position the rest of us under-invest in.
The second read is more interesting. Notice what Magomedov did when his opponent turned in to escape. The twister works because the standard escape — turning toward the attacker to face them — actually completes the submission for the attacker. That is the part of Jiu Jitsu people forget. A great submission is one where the opponent's correct reaction makes things worse for them. Triangles are like this. Armbars from S-mount are like this. The bow-and-arrow is like this. Train the finish so that the panic move feeds you. That is the difference between a position you hold and a position you finish.
The third read is for the coaches reading along on a phone before class. A Dagestani featherweight, in a culture that is famously wrestling-first, just walked into the UFC and finished a striker with a 10th Planet submission he drilled in Las Vegas a month before fight night. The borders between BJJ schools and MMA gyms keep getting thinner. The students who win are the ones whose coaches steal from everywhere.
The other thing worth saying
Magomedov is twenty-something years old, 1-0 in the UFC, and now a name. The right thing for fans of Jiu Jitsu to do is enjoy the clip, watch the back-take a few times, and remember that the headline submission was not the part that won the fight. The takedown won the fight. The back take built the win. The twister just happened to be the finishing chair the room hadn't seen in a while.
See you on the mats.
Original report via BJJEE.