Julian Erosa gives a lot of credit to his teammate Andy Barrera for honing the guillotine choke into a lethal weapon.
Erosa, who was the underdog going into the bout, attacked Christian Rodriguez on the stand and submitted him with a guillotine late in the first round at UFC on ESPN 59 in Denver last weekend. Erosa recently spoke about the guillotine, which has been getting quite a bit of press in Las Vegas.
Erosa claims he was already good with the guillotine choke when he started training at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Las Vegas, where he met Varela, who he claims has one of the best guillotines in the world. “Juicy J” said that Varela helped him make some tweaks to his guillotine, making it nearly “unstoppable.”
“I moved to Las Vegas about seven years ago now, I guess,” Erosa said on UFC Unfiltered. “When I first moved to Las Vegas, I went to 10th Planet here in Henderson and I met this kid named Andy Barrera, who has what I think is one of the best guillotines in the world, so I copied his guillotine and made my own.
“I had a pretty good guillotine before that, but he helped me with some of the little things he liked to do, and I started using them on my guillotine, and it became unstoppable. And my D’Arce is great, but it’s mainly because of Andy Varela that my guillotine has gotten even better.”
A skilled grappler, Varela is 1-2 in MMA, losing his last bout by TKO in the second round to Legacy Fighting Alliance competitor Keoni Diggs in 2018. Varela most recently won the Professional Grappling Federation World Season 6 tournament in Las Vegas in April of this year.
Erosa also revealed his love of skateboarding and snowboarding, which he credits for his excellent kicking technique, and claims that his skateboarding falls have made him tougher.
“I skateboarded and snowboarded, and I was pretty good at skateboarding back then,” he said. “I think my ability to kick comes from the dexterity and balance I developed from skateboarding and snowboarding. People have good hand-eye coordination, and I feel like I have really good foot-eye coordination from all those years of skateboarding. It made me tough. Concrete is unforgiving, so I think it helped me be more tenacious and tough.”
Erosa belongs to a long list of MMA fighters who love skateboarding, including Peyton Talbot, Jaylin Turner, Luke Rockhold, and Andre Fili. Erosa agrees that skateboarding is a dangerous sport, which is why he has become more careful about falls as he has gotten older. Thankfully, however, Erosa has never suffered any serious injuries in both skateboarding and MMA. Erosa believes that learning how to fall has helped him avoid injuries.
“I’ll be 35 at the end of this year,” Erosa said. “I’ve had 15 UFC fights and 41 pro fights. I’ve never broken a bone or torn an arm. I’ve been really blessed…
[in skateboarding as well]”I always learned how to fall before I learned how to do a trick, so I would do it 100 times and constantly think about how to fall until I could land it.”
