Murtazali Magomedov’s “Scottish twister” wins MMA Fighting’s Midyear Submission nod

MMA Fighting is handing out its Midyear Submission honor, and this one is built around a finish that felt both technical and sudden: Murtazali Magomedov’s Scottish twister. The outlet’s midyear awards, created as a fan-facing look at the most striking submissions from the first half of 2026, singled out Magomedov for a finish that blended positional trapping with a twisting finish once his opponent’s body alignment gave him the opening.

The recognition matters because submissions at the highest level are often where style and risk intersect. For Magomedov, the spotlight is not just on the moment of the tap, but on the way the finish appeared to be set up as his opponent moved into a familiar grappling pathway, then was forced into a less familiar angle. MMA Fighting framed the highlight as a reminder that, while the sport has plenty of highlight-reel chokes and joint attacks, the most damaging finishes can arrive when the opponent thinks the exchange has stabilized.

Magomedov’s path into that UFC moment, as MMA Fighting recounted, included a Contender Series debut that put him on national radar. The outlet wrote that he earned a UFC contract after using slick hand fighting to finish Brahyam Zurcher, showing he was not limited to grappling-only value before he ever entered the Octagon. That matters in the broader UFC landscape because modern contenders are expected to do enough on the feet to avoid being immediately steered into one-dimensional exchanges.

Once in the UFC, MMA Fighting’s attention turned to his submission game. The outlet described Magomedov putting Melsik Baghdasaryan on the mat and then choosing more than a standard path. Rather than settling for an expected rear-naked choke or hunting a single joint lock, MMA Fighting reported that Magomedov waited for Baghdasaryan to turn into a body lock, trapped him partway through, and then twisted him in a way that threatened his opponent’s upper-body positioning. The end result, as MMA Fighting characterized it, was a finish that stands out even in a year full of prominent submissions.

The Scottish twister label itself is a key piece of context for what makes the finish so attention-grabbing. It is the kind of submission that relies on precise control and timing, because it asks a fighter to convert a dominant position into an off-axis torque that can be difficult to defend once the body angle is compromised. In editorial terms, that combination of control, timing, and creativity is why MMA Fighting picked the finish over other strong submission options they had to consider for the first six months of 2026.

As a midyear award, this is not a governing-body ranking or an official performance metric, and it does not automatically translate into title implications. Still, it offers a snapshot of how UFC fans and analysts are viewing Magomedov at this point in the year. The next watch is whether his ability to threaten opponents with submissions continues to shape how matchups are planned around him, particularly when opponents start building game plans that account for a wider range of finishing angles beyond the most obvious chokes and armbars.