In one of the most bizarres crossovers in recent memory, Mackenzie Dern decided to take a minute to teach the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl (real name Hailey Welch) how to perform a rear-naked choke. There are plenty of celebrity BJJ enthusiasts around the world now, ranging from major acting stars to YouTube personalities. The lesson that Dern gave was a little more impromptu though and instead of taking place at an academy, she shared some of her knowledge right in the middle of a celebrity poker game. The two women were both among the contestants, as was former NFL running back Adrian Peterson.
The interaction started out with Welch attempting to apply a rear-naked choke to Peterson herself, although she wasn’t able to find any success. That’s when UFC veteran and ADCC world champion Dern decided to step in and show everyone how it’s done. Dern is one of the most popular female BJJ competitors of all time and one of the top contenders in the UFC strawweight division, so there aren’t many bigger experts around. She helped Welch do it herself before demonstrating how to apply the choke properly on Peterson and even explained the difference between cutting off someone’s blood or oxygen with a choke.
As with any other time that BJJ gets mentioned or discussed on another platform, it’s only ever a good thing for the sport. Anything like this helps to bring more attention to the sport and for academies all around the world, the end result is more people through the door. A rising tide lifts all boats too, because more beginners finding the sport inevitably leads to a bigger talent pool for competitors to come from. Giving the general public a glimpse of the power of Jiu-Jitsu like this is exactly how the sport develops further and becomes even more professionalised than it is today.
The full poker game is available to watch here but the clip of Mckenzie Dern teaching the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl Hailey Welch how to do a rear-naked choke can be found below:
