Julian
Erosa largely credits teammate Andy Varela
for refining his guillotine choke to a lethal weapon.
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An underdog going into the fight, Erosa tagged Christian
Rodriguez on the feet before submitting him with a guillotine
late in the first round at UFC
on ESPN 59 in Denver last weekend. Erosa recently weighed in on
his guillotine, which has now earned a quite reputation for itself
around Las Vegas.
Erosa claims to have already had a decent guillotine choke when he
started training at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Las Vegas. There Erosa
met Varela, who according to him has one of the best guillotines in
the world. “Juicy J” credits Varela for helping him make small
adjustments to his own guillotine, which he claims is now nearly
“unstoppable.”
“I would say I moved to Vegas about almost seven years ago now,”
Erosa said on UFC Unfiltered. “And when I first moved to
Vegas, I walked into 10th Planet in Henderson here and met a kid
named Andy
Varela. And Andy Varela
has one of the best guillotines in the world, in my opinion. And I
kind of just modeled my guillotine after his.
“I had a pretty good guillotine before that, but he really helped a
couple of the small details that he likes to do that I use in mine
as well. And it’s become a bit unstoppable. Also my D’Arce is
fantastic, but the guillotine I’ve got to attribute a big
percentage of it getting better to Andy
Varela.”
A seasoned grappler, Varela is 1-2 in MMA, with his last fight
dating back to 2018, a second round TKO loss against Keoni Diggs
under the Legacy Fighting Alliance banner. Varela most recently won
the Professional Grappling Federation World Season 6 tournament in
Las Vegas this past April.
Erosa also revealed his love for skateboarding and snowboarding,
which he credits for his elite kicking game. Additionally, Erosa
claims to have become tougher due to falls from skateboarding.
“I was a skateboarder and a snowboarder, and I was actually pretty
good at skateboarding at the time,” he said. “I actually attribute
a lot of my kicking ability to having good dexterity and good
balance from skateboarding and snowboarding. People have good
hand-eye coordination; I feel like have really good foot-eye
coordination as well because of all the years of skateboarding.
Just made me kind of made me tough, too. You know, concrete’s
pretty unforgiving. So, I think that helped build my tenacity and
my toughness as well.”
Erosa belongs to a long list of MMA fighters who love skateboarding
such as Payton
Talbott, Jalin
Turner, Luke
Rockhold, Andre Fili
and others. Erosa agrees that skateboarding is risky sport, which
is why he has grown more careful about falling with age. But
thankfully, Erosa has never had a serious injury in his
skateboarding and MMA journey combined. Erosa believes he has been
able to avoid injuries by learning how to fall.
“I turn 35 at the end of this year,” Erosa said. “I’ve had 15 UFC
fights, 41 professional fights. I have never broken anything, never
torn anything. I’ve been really blessed with that… Never anything
[in skateboarding as well]. It was always learning how to fall
before I learn how to do the trick. So I would always figure out
how to fall so I could do it a 100 times until I could land
it.”