With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best submissions from April 2024: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Submission of the Month award for April.

At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting for your choice.

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Nominees

Nominee: Taila Santos def. Ilara Joanne at 2024 PFL 1

The UFC’s subtraction seems to have been quite the addition for PFL with former UFC title challenger Taila Santos made her promotional debut and dispatched Ilara Joanne (11-9).

It was light work for Santos, who grounded Joanne and locked in a rear-naked choke for the stoppage just under four minutes into the women’s flyweight bout.

Nominee: Jean Matsumoto def. Dan Argueta at UFC Fight Night 240

Jean Matsumoto (15-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) had to fend off endless takedown attempts from Dan Argueta (9-3 MMA, 1-3 UFC) at before finally using one to his advantage to end the fight.

Highly touted bantamweight prospect Matsumoto found himself on bottom multiple times from Argueta over the course of nearly two full rounds. He then applied a tight arm-in guillotine choke with just one second left and forced the tap at the 4:59 mark of Round 2.

Nominee: Deiveson Figueiredo def. Cody Garbrandt at UFC 300

Former UFC flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo (23-3-1 MMA, 12-3-1 UFC) continued to make his mark in the bantamweight division when he took out former titleholder Cody Garbrandt (14-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC).

Figueiredo became the first to submit Garbrandt in MMA competition. The Brazilian secured a takedown in the second round that led to multiple submission attempts before he got the tap courtesy of a rear-naked choke.

Nominee: Kayla Harrison def. Holly Holm at UFC 300

Two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time PFL champion Kayla Harrison (17-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) made her highly anticipated octagon debut look easy against former women’s bantamweight titleholder Holly Holm (15-7 MMA, 8-7 UFC).

In what was her first career appearance at 135 pounds, Harrison overpowered Holm the mat on multiple occasions. Harrison landed multiple judo tosses and quickly transitioned to back mount on the final one, before cinching in the rear-naked choke and forcing Holm to tap.

Nominee: Chris Padilla def. James Llontop at UFC on ESPN 55

Only one man could get their first octagon win in the battle of newcomers between Chris Padilla (14-6 MMA, 1-0 UFC) and James Llontop (14-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC), and it was the former who got the job done.

Padilla showed off some slick ground skills when, during a scramble on the mat in the lightweight, he took the back of Llontop and locked in a rear-naked choke for the tap with 27 seconds left in the opening round. “Taco” entered the event tied as the biggest betting underdog, but the fight didn’t look that way as he got the job done.

The winner

The winner: Deiveson Figueiredo

Figueiredo’s move to bantamweight is resulting quite well for him.

The former UFC flyweight champion now is 2-0 since moving up to 135 pounds in December. Figueiredo built off his successful divisional debut by submitting Garbrandt in the opening bout of the historic UFC 300 event.

After a rough start in Round 1, in which the Brazilian was stunned a couple of times by Garbrandt, Figueiredo came back in the second round to dominate. He quickly took down Garbrandt, threatened with an arm-triangle choke, then switched to the back to secure a rear-naked choke.

Figueiredo is on a two-fight winning streak since he lost the flyweight title to Brandon Moreno in January 2023. The 36-year-old defeated veteran contender Rob Font in December in his first fight at 135 pounds.