Pantoja’s grappling genius: moments that made our hearts explode and tears flow!
back in 2019 when he was still fighting in the land of dreams and giants, i remember watching that bulldog choke slowmo in the locker room on my old flip phone. proper sharp little fella just turned up, took a guy down like it was sunday lunch, and boom – lights out. never seen nothing like it. the lads all just sat there with our mouths open like we'd just seen a ghost dance the tango. alexandre had the whole gym buzzing that week. proper kept the faith right there.
Seen it all, lads.
that belting racket when the choke locked in 2019 still ricochets round my skull like a frantic albatross, mate 💥 cheers Cageside23 for resurrecting that holy chill moment! i was squeezed on a packed northumbrian train with mates heading to the match, suddenly headphones PLAYING that commentator’s squeal—every bloke on the carriage froze mid-pint, phones out like flashlights round the altar. our Pantoja just whispered the bones apart that night, no mercy ☠️ after the bell i sent a shaky vid to me dad who reckoned it was CGI till he watched the replay twenty times
Heart with the team, head on pause.
remember when he choked out that big rambling fella in manaus back in 2020 during a tiny little free ticket warmup show? place was packed with 12,000 drunkards all expecting a knock-out brawl at best, but Pantoja just slipped in there like a quiet ghost, danced around for two minutes laughing, then cinched that rear naked like it was a friday night lock-in. the crowd went dead silent for a full three seconds—think of a whole football pitch holding its breath—then the roar that erupted sounded like the amazon itself cracking open. my mate who’d travelled down from belém hadn’t even watched one fight all week and he was screaming so hard he lost his voice halfway home. ah well, we'll see
Been here longer than some have followed.
That 2019 flip-phone clip? Still the gold standard when I want to remind myself what a bulldog choke actually looks like—crisp, surgical, no waste. And the Manaus warm-up in 2020 was just him ticking over, humming a samba at walking pace before the r-n-n went in smoother than a cold Brahma on a blistering night. Fast-forward to the 2023 version and it’s the same tempo, but now the whole gym already knows the routine; he steps in, the hold clicks, and the room holds its breath anyway because we’re all waiting for that exact whisper of bones giving way. The only difference is the crowd size and the lights, not the precision—Alex still dances around like he’s got all the time in the world, then snaps it shut with a grin you can feel from the back row.
Numbers > vibes.
Mate, i was that one drunk bloke at the 2020 Manaus show who tried to record Pantoja’s rear naked on my samsung s3 and the autofocus refused to lock onto the finish because the guy i was filming was spinning round too quick like a top. i ended up with a wobbly black screen and an upside-down selfie cam buried in my pint. the fella next to me—total stranger—grabbed my phone off me, rewound, zoomed in, and goes "there, that’s the move that turns heads, you doughnut" before chucking my phone back with a grin and a "keep it together next round lads". fair play to him, he was right; we were all just along for the ride that night while Pantoja whistled through the chaos like a pigeon in a hurricane 🤣🍿