Rarest Submission Wins in MMA History (Top 11)
BJJ is one of the most important fighting styles in modern MMA. You just can’t step inside the cage and expect to do well without having at least basic BJJ skills. And, it has been like that since the early days of the UFC.
Yet, fans often forget MMA fighters who have strong BJJ game use only a few selected techniques. These submissions are proven to work well in MMA fighting and we bet you know most of them:
- armbar
- triangle choke
- guillotine choke
- rear-naked choke
- kimura
But from time to time, we can see a fighter executing very rare BJJ techniques. We are speaking about the ones that got us thinking “What the hell he/she just did?” And we must say it’s a shame we don’t see some of them more often.
In this article, we are bringing you the rarest submission wins in MMA. We are not ranking them in any particular order and if you think we’ve cut someone, feel free to add more in the comment section below.
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10. Nick Diaz - “Gogoplata”
Nick Diaz claims a lot of credits for putting the “gogoplata” on the map. We are not totally sure, but there is a reason to believe he was the first one to pull it off in MMA at Pride 33 against Takanori Gomi. Nick turned into a true superstar in Japan after this fight.
Since then, we have seen just a handful of gogoplata finishes and we are yet to see one inside the UFC cage. This shows you how rare this move is, not to mention the level of skill you need to execute it.
9. “Peruvian Necktie” by Patt Curran
This is one of the rarest submissions you can see in MMA simply because it’s very hard to pull it off. You must have a bit of luck to get an ideal position first before your rival spots what you are trying to do.
Even though it’s hard to get, the Peruvian Necktie is really effective. Once locked in, 99% of the fighters would tap regardless of the BJJ level. MMA fighters usually set it up from the headlock.
Patt was one of the rare fighters who were able to execute it in MMA. He did it at Bellator 46 against Luis Palomino, and it looked amazing.
8. The Korean Zombie and the famous “Twister”
Most of us know Chang Sung Jung for his amazing standup skills. But, let’s not overlook the fact he has a very good BJJ game. Don’t look any further from his UFC debut fight if you want to see an example.
At UFC Fight Night 24, Jung was able to pull the first ever twister inside the UFC octagon. This was an amazing moment simply because you don’t see twister that often.
It is one of those submissions that are very hard to set up, not to mention how painful it is. I mean, Chung was literally twisting Garcia’s spine.
7. Nick Pace and “The Pace” choke
This one could easily enter some of our future “weird MMA finishes” lists. At UFC TUF 12 finale Nick pulled one of the strangest moves in MMA history when he finished Will Campuzano.
Even today, no-one can say what this move was. Many people think it looks a lot like a pillory choke. But either way, this variation was named after Nick.
In Nick’s words, he was just mixing things up and making it on the spot which makes it even more bizarre. As one would expect, we have never seen any other fighter attempting or executing this move.
“You surprised me. I don’t know what that technique was that you did. I don’t think I ever see somebody choking anybody like that” — Joe Rogan
6. Calf Slicer — Charles Oliveira
This is one of the purest examples of a perfectly placed calf slicer submissions you will ever see. Just thinking about all the scenarios that could go wrong with this submission makes up my stomach spin around. I mean, this one is really painful and you can clearly see that on Eric’s face.
Also known as “Calf Crusher”, this is a scary submission because it presses calf muscle to the shin bone which hurts like hell. Yet, it rarely leads to serious injuries because fighters will always tap out before the damage is done. The pain is just too much.
In other leg locks like “heel hook”, when a fighter screams in pain that means the damage is already done.
5. Ben Saunders submitting Chris Heatherly with “Omoplata”
Omoplata is a complex submission and this is the reason why you are not seeing MMA fighters pulling it that often. They will always shoot for the triangle or armbar instead. But when fully locked in, there’s no escape from Omoplata.
Over the years, just a handful of fighters have managed to get the tap in MMA. One of these fighters was Ben Saunders and his omoplata was just a piece of BJJ gold. At first, it looked like he wanted to place the regular triangle choke. But once Chris started defending, he switched to omoplata in a split second.
Check it out yourself.
4. Ovince St. Preux and the “Von Flue Choke”
The popular OSP has used this move four times to get the win inside the UFC cage. Now, OSP is “just” a brown belt in BJJ and most fans actually know him for his insane KO power. But in recent years, we can see him relying more and more on his grappling skills. The famous victims of OSP’s von flue choke were Yushin Okami and Nikita Krylov.
The original creator of this move was the former MMA fighter, Jason Von Flue. He used it the first time to submit Alex Karalexis at TUF season 3 and it quickly became very popular. Most fighters use it to counter guillotine chokes from the side control and it allows you to catch the opponent off guard in most cases.
3. Alexey Olienik — “Ezekeil Choke”
Alexey is the first and only fighter to ever win a UFC fight with Ezekiel Choke and has done it twice. This was not such a shock thinking that Alexey is a legit black belt in BJJ and Jujutsu. And he tapped almost 50 opponents in his career.
This type of choke has many gi and no-gi variations and it comes from Judo. No Gi is tricky to get simply because fighters can’t use the opponent’s sleeve as the leverage to choke them out. This is the main reason why we can’t see more fighters using it in MMA.
2. Anders Silva tapping to “flying scissor heel hook”
One must pull a hell of a submission to finish, by many, the greatest MMA fighter ever, Anderson Silva. And that is exactly what took place at Pride in 2004. Ryo Chonan pulled a huge upset when he caught Silva into the very unique flying scissor heel hook.
In fact, he was the first and only man to execute this move in MMA. We can’t even recall someone having a shot at it in recent times.
The flying scissor heel hook originates from Judo. It is the advanced version of the “regular” heel hook technique. Just as its name suggests, a person must catch the submission while midair.
This makes it very risky since you are putting the entire body weight on it which can easily blow the ACL or Ankle.
1. Toby Imada and “Inverted Triangle”
This one is my personal favorite and we can all agree we want more inverted triangles in MMA. I mean, they look amazing and are very rare.
For most MMA fans, Toby’s submission win over Jorge Masvidal is the best in the history of the sport. And it’s very hard to argue against that.
It all goes to an extra level when you watch the entire fight and realize Toby was taking a serious beating for two rounds. Masvidal was all over him for two rounds and clearly winning the fight up to the point he got caught.
But, Toby was able to stay calm in the heat of the moment and pull this amazing submission. And let’s not forget he locked it while they were standing which makes this submission even harder.
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