A record number of attempts later, Darren Elkins finally got his first UFC submission

Darren Elkins is recognized for his grinding, grappling-heavy fighting style which wears opponents down and eventually causes them to break. That’s what makes the fact that his win over Michael Johnson was his first by submission in the UFC so surprising.

Elkins (24-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC) made a bit of UFC history when he tapped out Johnson (17-13 MMA, 9-9 UFC) with a rear-naked choke in the second round of their featherweight bout Sunday at UFC Fight Night 124, which took place at Scottrade Center in St. Louis and aired on FS1. He got “The Menace” to give up to what was his 21st submission attempt in UFC competition, the most by any fighter ever before landing a finish.

The Team Alpha Male product went 0-for-20 on submission attempts prior to UFC Fight Night 124. He’s committed to holds against the likes of Dennis Bermudez, Jeremy Stephens and more but could never lock on a fight-ending hold. He got the job done against Johnson, though, and credited jiu-jitsu coach Chris Holdsworth for the positive influence in preparation.

“I get on the back all the time,” Elkins told MMAjunkie after his first submission win since his pre-UFC career in May 2009. “I get in a lot of positions where I’m on people’s back. I have like the most submissions attempted in the division, but guess what? I had no submissions in the UFC until tonight. I worked a lot with Chris Holdsworth, and all we did was back takes. I was like, ‘Listen, I’m in this position all the time. This is where I need to finish a guy. If I’m here I don’t want to last and do a three-round fight again. I just want to finish the fight here.'”

Elkins elaborated, explaining exactly how he stopped Johnson to push his winning streak to six consecutive fights at 145 pounds.

“We settled in, we had hand positioning, head positioning,” Elkins said. “I had it just a little bit underneath his chin, but I knew I had enough where it was going to start choking him. It was starting to choke him well then I slid my hand all the way underneath there, and I knew I had him. I had that body triangle on him, I had that choke.”

With Elkins’ victory with his 21st submission attempt, he breaks the previous record held by Jacob Volkmann, who finally got his first UFC submission victory in his 15th attempt against Shane Roller at UFC on FX 5 in October 2012.

FightMetric research analyst and live statistics producer Michael Carroll contributed to this story.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 124, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

The Blue Corner is MMAjunkie‘s official blog and is edited by Mike Bohn.