Chokes are more effective than just about any other fight-ending technique. in unarmed combat. A really tough guy or someone hopped up on adrenaline can ignore painful punches and keep on fighting despite broken limbs. But if the blood stops flowing to the brain, then out go the lights.
And chokes, properly applied against the sides of the neck and promptly released when the opponent taps out or goes unconscious are fairly safe; certainly much safer than the concussive brain damage inflicted by knocking someone out.
That being said, chokes aren’t completely safe. Do them wrong and you could easily face criminal charges.
Obviously holding a choke on after the other guy has lapsed into unconsciousness is dangerous – it prolongs the hypoxia in the brain which can eventually lead to brain damage and death.
But there’s another, greatly underappreciated danger of using a choke in a real fight, especially if you’re using them to subdue a standing opponent.
Failing to control an opponent’s descent to the floor after you choke him out could kill him.
I’ve previously written about how lots of people have gone to jail for a very long time after someone they punched hit their head on the pavement and died. In those cases it wasn’t the punch that killed the victim, it was the second impact of their heads colliding with a pavement-covered planet afterwards that does the real damage.
But exactly the same risks apply to choking someone out on their feet. Here are a couple of incidents you may have heard about…
Four days before the first Wrestlemania event, in 1985 talk show host and actor Richard Bezler kept bugging Hulk Hogan to show him a wrestling hold on live TV. The Hulkster put him into a guillotine choke variation known as the front face lock, and six seconds later Bezler went limp. Hulk Hogan let him go and the floppy host fell and smashed the back of his head against the floor, drawing blood and sending him to the hospital.
This uncontrolled fall resulted in a five-million-dollar lawsuit against Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon and the WWE, followed by a $400,000 settlement in 1990.
More recently, in April of 2023, UFC fighter Nate Diaz choked out civilian Rodney Peterson in a streetfight in New Orleans…
I wasn’t there, I don’t know who started the fight, and I don’t know who was sober and who was not. Also, it’s generally more merciful to choke someone out than to beat them into unconsciousness.
That being said, from watching the video, I can say Nate Diaz wasn’t being smart.
Letting an unconscious Peterson fall to the sidewalk and onto the street in an uncontrolled manner opened himself up to HUGE legal liability. Had Peterson fallen a little differently, had he cracked his skull on the corner of the sidewalk, then this fight could have ended in an unintentional fatality and a manslaughter charge.
Peterson survived, but Nate had to pay a $10,000 bond and will probably have to deal with years of legal troubles.
Legal troubles, lawyer fees, and going to jail all SUCK. Remember that the next time you’re tempted to throw down in anything other than a life-and-death situation.
And if you do choke someone out on their feet using a guillotine choke, rear naked choke, or any other standing choke, then your job isn’t done yet. DON’T let them drop.
Instead, lower that person to the ground and roll them into the 3/4 prone recovery position. That way, they won’t fracture their skull, break their neck, or asphyxiate on their own vomit, all of which would obviously be a terrible outcome. However, even if you’re a psychopath who doesn’t care about other people, it could still cause you a gigantic and costly legal headache.
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