How Lachlan Caught Marcelo with the Lachy Lock
This flow chart breaks down the key moments of how Lachlan Giles defeated Marcelo Garcia at ONE Fight Night 38. Marcelo brought his signature forward-pressure passing, looking to force chest-to-chest or north-south control. Lachlan countered with world-class guard retention and timed entries into deep leg entanglements. This chart maps the general conditions and events that led to the finish.
Flow outline
Initial Standing Engagement
- Both Marcelo and Lachlan start with defensive grip fighting. Marcelo is feeling out openings while Lachlan wants to get onto the ground to play guard.
Marcelo Engages in Lachlan's Guard
- As Marcelo initially passes, he transitions to a controlled pass. He likes to enter with heavy hips into his signature tight waist control. As Lachlan starts framing and attacking his arms, Marcelo backs off to pass around the guard.
- When transitioning upright, he maintains pressure on Lachlan's bottom leg
- When transitioning to do outside passing, Marcelo has to prevent Lachlan's leg entries by controlling his legs while keeping his own farther away from Lachlan so he can't enter leg entanglements.
Marcelo's Passing Stance
- This stance embodies Marcelo's philosophy of winning the inside space around the hips and ribs first, stripping grips and pinning knees to compress options and deny clean K-guard paths before attempting to pass.
- Hands control or hover above guard player's knees
- Hips stay close without collapsing onto guard
- Knees are angled to threaten knee cuts and folding passes
Shallow K Guard Entry
- This entry uses the inside knee to tilt Marcelo's center, disrupt his passing rhythm, and create opportunities to expose the far leg or invert for backside attacks
- Shin connects inside, knee drifts toward passer's far hip
- Uses inside knee to tilt passer's center of mass
- Seeks to expose the far leg for potential entries
Marcelo Protects Knee Line
- This prevents Lachlan from sliding his hips under to secure a direct bite on the knee line.
- Circles knee outward to break shin connection
- Repositions / push Lachlan's foot so it is not in line with Lachlan's hip
- Applies forward pressure to limit Lachlan's mobility for hip adjustments
Marcelo's Pressure Passing
- This diagonal, chest-oriented pressure aims to pin the hips and flatten the opponent, forcing Lachlan to reach for off-balances from bad angles and creating the cumulative, suffocating control that defines Marcelo's top game
- Pins guard player's knees together to limit mobility
- Hips stay close, not sprawled, to maintain pressure
- Shoulders angle toward head, threatening cross-face
- Knee cut is diagonal to deny easy hip access for leg entries
- Marcelo details his style on heavy hips
Lachlan's Guard Recovery
- Lachlan stays on his side to prevent being pinned and becoming immobile.
Cumulative Inside Space Passing
- Marcelo is not afraid to back off and reset his guard passing when he gets into an uncomfortable position.
- Incrementally passing is cumulative, where each reset degrades the guard player's ability to invert and rotate, wearing them down over time to create fewer good options with each exchange.
- Progressively restricts the guard player's hip rotation
- Stacks knees to reduce the guard player's framing space
- Each reset leaves the guard player with fewer viable recovery options
Deep K-Guard Entry
- This committed entry represents the turning point where Lachlan's aggression succeeds, gaining the deeper wedge and knee line control needed to access his K guard attacks
- Achieves a deeper wedge under the passer's leg
- Establishes strong control over the passer's knee line
- Creates sufficient angle to connect grips and hips for leg attack
Lachy Lock Submission
- Lachlan sets up a rotational leg lock, coined as the Lacky Lock.
- Controls foot across chest, aligning rotational force.
- Applies extension threat through hip and knee like a kneebar.
- Adds rotational force through the knee joint.
- Creates torsion on the ankle via foot control and line of force.
- The difference between the two is that the foot is across Lachlan's chest, whereas Mikey does his version towards the bottom.
Lachlan Attacks the Arm
- Lachlan stays on his side to prevent being pinned and becoming immobile.
- When Marcelo leaves his arm close to his head, he tries to get a grip on the arms, which opens him up for leverage for attacks or a Choi bar submission.
Branch conditions
- Marcelo takes the leg and pulls while immediately sprawling hard to pin Lachlan's leg
- as Marcelo steps offline across the shin to maintain forward pressure
- when Marcelo passes around Lachlan, Lachlan inverts and throws his leg behind himself to enter a shallow K guard
- as Marcelo circles his knee outward to protect his knee line
- when Marcelo re-establishes pressure and pins the knees together
- as Lachlan uses pummels and hip escapes to recover guard structure
- when Marcelo incrementally restricts hip rotation and stacks the knees
- if Lachlan finds angle for a deep wedge and secures the knee line
- when deep K-guard control allows connection of grips for rotational attack
- if shallow K-guard fails and Marcelo immediately pins knees to pass
- when Lachlan re-initiates shallow entry after Marcelo's knee circle
- as cumulative pressure allows Marcelo to re-assert knee-cut passing
- Marcelo closes the distance towards chest-to-chest
- Marcelo backs off and then reenages