As you know, Verneri Hakkinen took the first buggy stranglehold victory in Finnish freestyle history.
Amateur freestyler from Tampere Verner Hakkinen succeeded in an extremely rare trick at the Fight Night 6 match event organized in Seinäjoki.
27-year-old Hakkinen defeated his opponent Rasmus Vauhkonen with the so-called buggy strangulation, which is known to have never been seen in Finnish freestyle arenas before.
Buggy strangulation can be attempted when the contestants are side bound, i.e. one contestant lies across the chest of the other.
If the fighter below gets his elbows and knees locked together behind the neck of the opponent on top, his head and shoulder can be locked in such a tight package that submission is the only option.
Something about the rarity of the trick is said by the fact that for buggy choke no translation of any kind has been invented in the Finnish vocabulary.
So after Hakkinen’s match, even the ring announcer was amazed.
– Generally, it is always announced which technique was used to win. Now there was no replacement word for it, says Hakkinen.
Not trained
Buggy strangulation has never been practiced in Jujutsu training at Tampere’s home gym.
– I don’t think any other gym spends time on that. We make more of those basic locks. That strangulation is clearly a bit underrated, says Hakkinen.
– I myself only watched it on Youtube, and my sister and I practiced it here in the camp.
Side tying is a common position in freestyle wrestling, so how on earth has buggy strangulation never been seen in Finland before?
– It has to be elastic, so that you can bend your forearm in it. Not everyone can do it. And even if you get hold of it, extortion is not easy, Hakkinen knows.
Hakkinen’s performance was also dramatic to the extent that he was about to lose the match by the referee’s vote, before the last-minute choke point opened.
– Many came to say that it was like from the movie Rocky, the contestant laughs.
Content was needed
In the spring of 2022, Verneri Hakkinen celebrated his victory at the Art of Fight event in Oulu. Verneri Hakkinen’s album
Still, as Hakkinen himself said, tightening the buggy throttle is physically very difficult.
– Yes, it meant that I would run out of strength, but I did, like the coach (Lauri Karppinen) shouted, and I threw everything into the game.
– From the opponent’s corner there was a cry that “it doesn’t look tight”. I had a little doubt that it would come from there. Fortunately, my own coach was kind and has enough guts that I was able to do it.
Rasmus Vauhkonen, who was on his neck in the match, was naturally upset about the last-minute loss. A struggle that went well crumbled in a completely unexpected way.
– Rasmus was really disappointed, but praised that it was a great choke, says Hakkinen.