“When I first got in on his hips, I took him down to the ground and I started setting my hooks in, and as he was crawling to the fence, that’s when he left his head open. So that’s when I grabbed the rear-naked choke, but I wasn’t quite under his chin. That’s why he was giving the ref the thumbs-up. I was just kind of holding position. I knew I had a little bit of time. I looked up to my corner -- I wanted to see exactly how much time I had. I didn’t want to rush anything, and then when I realized that I had enough time, I was trying to decide either to let go and start punching, finishing strong, or just go for the choke and just kind of give it everything I had. I think there was like 25 seconds left, 30 seconds left and I just went as hard as I could for the choke. He fought it off a couple of times, and eventually it slipped under his chin. It was just a matter of time until he was ready to go out, and he tapped. Sixteen seconds left, it really couldn’t get any closer than that.”
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