Song Yadong submitted Deiveson Figueiredo with a guillotine choke, continuing Team Alpha Male's legacy with the technique. Urijah Faber previously used the guillotine to submit Jens Pulver and Dominick Cruz, and the camp has recorded over 10 finishes with the submission across top promotions.
Song Yadong claimed UFC gold on May 30, 2026, submitting Deiveson Figueiredo with a guillotine choke to become the latest fighter from Team Alpha Male to win a UFC championship via that signature technique.
The finish added another chapter to a lineage stretching back to Urijah Faber, the 47-year-old Team Alpha Male founder who built a 35-11 career record and became synonymous with the guillotine. Faber, a five-foot-six Orthodox fighter out of the United States, previously used the submission to finish both Jens Pulver and Dominick Cruz, and across top promotions the camp has now recorded more than ten stoppages with the choke.
Pulver, a 51-year-old southpaw who finished his career at 27-19-1, was among the first high-profile victims of the Team Alpha Male guillotine. The five-foot-seven American owned a 37-percent striking accuracy over his career. Cruz, now 41 and fighting out of Alliance MMA, carries a 24-4 record and long represented the blueprint of a mobile, technical bantamweight — landing 3.91 significant strikes per minute across his career — yet could not escape Faber's choking grip in their memorable encounter.
Why it matters
- Song Yadong becomes the third UFC champion to be finished by a Team Alpha Male guillotine, cementing the technique as a defining identity of the Sacramento camp.
- The finish extends the camp's recorded guillotine stoppages to more than ten across major promotions, reinforcing its status as one of the most successful submission systems in MMA.
- Figueiredo, one of the most decorated champions in UFC flyweight and bantamweight history, falling to the choke underscores how dangerous the hold remains at the highest level.
