UFC women’s strawweight Angela Magana, ended up in the hospital after refusing to tap from a Twister submission hold.
Magana, who competed on season 20 of the Ultimate Fighter, post a picture of herself on Twitter in hospital bed with a brace on her chest.
The twister (a similar move in wrestling is known as a guillotine) is a sideways body bend and neck crank, which involves forcing the head towards the shoulder while controlling the body, hence causing lateral hyperflexion of the cervical spine. The technique involves tension in several bodyparts, and depending on the flexibility of the recipient, can also involve pain in the knees, abdominals and torso. The twister is often confused as being a spine crank since it involves a degree of lateral non-cervical spinal flexion. The main pressure is however on the cervical spine, hence making it a neck crank.
It is performed from a back mount single vine ride position, where the top man has one “hook” threaded through the bottom man’s legs and secured behind the ankle. The top man then pulls the bottom man’s opposite arm behind his own head and grabs hold of his opponent’s head, pulling it down to his shoulder.
The Twister was popularized by Eddie Bravo and the 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu system.
I'd rather go out crippled than tap to a twister pic.twitter.com/bgwxb7pDvk
— Angela Magana UFC (@AngelaMagana1) November 2, 2015
Dr. Michael Cantrell explains what the following submissions do from a medical perspective: Twister, the Banana Split, and the Crotch Ripper.
