Pat Curran Breaks Down Dramatic Submission of Daniel Straus

Pat Curran, on “Beatdown,” discussing how he finished Daniel Straus in the last seconds of their March 14 Bellator featherweight title bout:

“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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