Untangle the more unorthodox MMA moves with our rundown of the six most exclusive submissions you’ll ever see.
Even those new to MMA can spot an armbar, rear naked choke or guillotine, but recognizing MMA’s more esoteric submissions can be a tricky proposition.
In this article we’ll help you identify some of the rarest joint locks, holds and chokes within grappling game.
The Bravo Moves
Pundit and trainer Eddie Bravo has made a career out of taking funky (read, near-impossible) jiu-jitsu techniques and turning them into almost run-of-the-mill moves. The pot-smoking submission specialist has defied all convention and developed a way of making outlandish moves actually work in MMA, as evidenced by some high-profile examples.
The Gogoplata
Eddie didn’t invent the choke known as the gogoplata, but he did come up with a high-percentage set-up that made a once hit-and-miss attack into a real threat.
Using his hyper-flexible lower limbs, Bravo would wrap his legs high around the shoulders of his opponent in a position known as the rubber guard. By slipping the foot under the chin and using the lower shin to exert pressure on the throat, it is possible to force a tapout.
A few years back Bravo released a book and a series of instructional videos on how to get the gogoplata and the floodgates opened.
Contrary to popular belief, spindly submission wizard Shinya Aoki was not the first person to successfully catch a ‘gogo’ in a recorded bout.
It was in fact a Japanese featherweight called Ryusuke ‘Jack’ Uemura, who choked Isao Terada unconscious in January 2005 on little-known Japanese promotion ZST. Aoki’s gogoplata win over Joachim Hansen came almost two years later on Pride’s 2006 end of year show.
Two months after that, Nick Diaz submitted Takanori Gomi with the same move, though his win was overturned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission after he tested positive for marijuana (also Bravo’s preferred choice of substance). Brad Imes, a 6’7” heavyweight, became the largest recorded fighter to hit a gogoplata, winning back-to-back fights in 2007 with the rarely seen sub.
The Twister
This bizarre-looking submission hold actually comes from freestyle wrestling, where the technique (known to wrestlers as a guillotine) is used to pin a man on his shoulders to win a match.
Bravo, who wrestled in high school, knew how much force this move exerted on the spine and reapplied it in submission grappling as a finishing move.
Wrapping or ‘grapevine-ing’ oneself around an opponent from behind, the effectiveness of the move comes from immobilizing the lower body while simultaneously cranking on the upper body, exerting enormous rotational force throughout the lumbar and cervical sections of the spine. One of the nastiest finishing moves around, the potential for real injury is high and opponents usually tap out without hesitation.
Much less common than the gogoplata, there are only a handful of documented cases of the twister in MMA.
The first took place in England in May 2004, when lightweight Gerald Strebendt (a student of Eddie Bravo) used the move to tap out a local jiu-jitsu fighter in the first round. Jason Chambers, a TV-show host and actor, followed suit in September 2005 with another first round twister victory. Both men studied directly under Bravo.
The highest profile fighter to use the move so far is ex-UFC middleweight Jason Day, who submitted Trevor Stewardson, a light heavyweight boxer who competed for Canada in boxing at the 2004 Athens Olympics, at Rumble in the Cage 35, a Canadian event in 2009.
The Impossible
There is a well-known ad for a sports company that says, ‘Impossible is nothing.’ In MMA, this just isn’t true; there are plenty of moves that work fine in pure grappling. Try them out in the cage however, and they’d most likely end up a spectacular fail.
Wristlock
Cheeky and effective, wrist locks are favored by bouncers, police and traditional martial arts practitioners. Wristlock-wielding Akido experts strike fear into the heart of every 13-year-old boy – justifiably, as a properly applied wristlock can take down a fully grown man with ease. But not in the cage.
Wristlocks are legal under standard MMA rules – they’re just nigh on impossible to pull off. Fighters have their hands taped up to protect the fragile metacarpal bones in the fists. The layers of bandage and tape reduce movement in the wrist joint to protect against potential injuries when fists start flying, which rules out any potential for wrist joint attacks. Also, wrist locks usually only work against drunk or untrained individuals – not hyper-aware professional fighters who will punch you in the face as soon as you reach for their hand.
Boston Crab
Most MMA fans will be familiar with professional wrestling’s Boston crab from their childhoods. Brightly colored stuntmen would occasionally tie each other up with this classic grappling move between bouts of hitting each other with flimsy steel chairs.
Unknown to most, the good old Boston crab is actually legal under MMA rules! Essentially a simultaneous double leg and spine lock, this pro wrestling show move is actually quite painful and genuinely dangerous, as it puts massive pressure on the lower spine.
The problem with the Boston crab is that you need to flip a fighter over onto his front once you’ve grabbed both his legs – and unless he’s semi-conscious, there’s just no way he’s going to let you do that. Any fighter with half-decent submission awareness is going to react as soon as one of his legs is attacked, let alone both at the same time.
The Boston crab is a professional wrestling move, and it’s likely to stay that way. That said, the single-leg version is an accessible technique that has been used a number of times in recent years.
When a fighter attacks for an ankle lock, it is common for them to roll with the limb until they are facing the mat. Once there, all their opponent needs to do is posture up and continue to crank the hold. The Undertaker would be proud.
The Super-Rare
Some submissions are so seldom seen you’re more likely to stumble across Brock Lesnar in the vegan section of your local supermarket than encounter one in the cage. When conditions are right, they are possible – though highly uncommon.
The Von Flue choke
This move is so rare it instantly became known by the name of the first (and to date, only) man who has managed to pull it off in the Octagon. Jason Von Flue was a contestant on TUF 2, but few people knew he was actually a training partner of Chuck Liddell fighting out of the infamous Pit gym. Up until 2006 Von Flue was a capable (if somewhat hot and cold) welterweight, as he proved when he choked Alex Karalexis out with an unorthodox side choke on Ultimate Fight Night 3.
Karalexis had attempted a guillotine but Von Flue avoided it and was sat on top in side control. Karalexis still had his arms wrapped around Von Flue’s head and was left without any hands free to defend his neck – Von Flue used this opening to press down on Karalexis’s neck with his shoulder, driving his weight through his opponent’s throat.
A stubborn and technically limited scrapper, Karalexis let pride get the better of him and went out rather than tap. Unfortunately, this was Von Flue’s moment of fame; he was cut from the UFC two fights later and dropped seven of his next 11 fights. He last fought in 2009.
Omoplata
It’s quite odd that the omoplata is not seen more often in MMA, as it’s considered a staple move in the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling. Yet for a few reasons the omoplata occurs with solar eclipse-like frequency in the cage. A basic submission hold that attacks the shoulder joint (omoplata means scapula in Portuguese) the move involves using both legs to entangle an opponent’s arm when attacking from the bottom. By shifting the hips out to the side and kicking the heels to the floor, it forces the opponent face down.
Rotational pressure on the shoulder joint will prompt them to tap out or risk a dislocated shoulder. To date, no fighter has successfully pulled off an omoplata as a submission in a high profile organization like the UFC.
But a number of fighters, including light heavyweight champ Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and lightweight standout George Sotiropoulos, have used them as sweeps, reversing opponents from on top and putting them in an inferior position. So the omoplata is now viewed as more of a transition than a submission in itself. Frank Mir famously tied Tank Abbott up with an omoplata but elected to use his hands (which are left free by the move) to apply a particularly nasty toehold.
MMA trivia buffs take note: Jason David Frank, who played one of the Power Rangers in the 1990s, scored a win by omoplata in his debut MMA fight, an amateur affair held in Texas in January 2010.
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