As we look back at the year that was in MMA, it was easy to put together a list of 2021’s best knockouts – there were some amazing, memorable KOs throughout the year. It wasn’t quite as easy to do the same for submissions, but there were still some great ones to choose from. So without further ado, here’s my list at the top 10 best submissions of 2021:
10. Vicente Luque vs. Michael Chiesa, UFC 265
Vicente Luque has officially taken Tony Ferguson‘s old mantle as the D’Arce Knight. Luque has four D’Arce finishes in his UFC career, and both of his wins in 2021 came via the submission. But none were more impressive than the one he hit on Michael Chiesa in August, taking out one of the most powerful and impressive grapplers in the welterweight division.
This fight was a thrill. Chiesa took Luque down and nearly had him finished with a rear-naked choke, only for Luque to flip the script on him and snatch the D’Arce, which has become his signature submission. It was one of the best “call the ambulance… but not for me!” moments of the year, capping off 2021 for welterweight’s most entertaining contender.
Luque rules, and I hope he finally gets a title shot in 2022.
9. Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson, UFC 259
Amanda Nunes’ stunning upset loss to Julianna Pena leaves the former two-division champ’s future in doubt, considering her only remaining title is in a weight class that doesn’t really exist in the UFC. But if her March featherweight championship defense against Megan Anderson turns out to be her last hurrah, at least it was a memorable one.
Everyone remembers how clearly terrified Anderson was when she walked into the UFC Apex that night, but don’t forget how slick the finish was. Nunes tapped Anderson with a really neat inversion of the triangle armbar, having worked her way along from Anderson’s back to get in position and extend Anderson’s arm directly upward from her head to secure the finish. You don’t see that particular submission very often, let alone in a UFC title fight.
Anderson was completely out of her depth, but that doesn’t make this submission any less sick.
8. A.J. McKee vs. Patricio Pitbull, Bellator 263
I’m not someone who says that just because it happened in a big fight, a knockout or submission has to be one of the best of the year, but moment is important. And the moment doesn’t get much bigger than turning the Bellator GOAT’s lights out in the single most important fight in the promotion’s history.
A.J. McKee’s guillotine choke finish of Patricio Pitbull was the coronating performance in his rise to stardom, and his evolution into Bellator’s top star. And it came as a remarkable turnabout on Pitbull, who’s squeezed a few unfortunate opponents unconscious with guillotines himself – in fact, he did it to Emmanuel Sanchez just four months previously.
McKee was my 2020 Submission of the Year winner for his 100% neck crank on Darrion Caldwell, but this one was pretty good too. McKee’s turning highlights into a habit.
7. Paul Craig vs. Jamahal Hill, UFC 264
So this one isn’t technically a submission in the record books – it officially went down as a TKO, with the referee stopping the fight due to strikes. But let’s be real – the reason this fight should have been stopped was because Paul Craig left Jamahal Hill’s arm flopping around like a wet noodle.
Craig is one of the last true guard specialists succeeding at a high level in MMA, the most prolific triangle choker in the UFC, and an annual fixture on Submission of the Year lists. I don’t think he’s had any quite as nasty as this one.
Hill somehow never taps from the triangle armbar that snapped his arm, but Craig never let up, landing a number of sharp elbows and punches while still trapping Hill in the hold. The referee eventually has to stop it once he realizes just how fucked Hill truly is. It was one of the most brutal submissions of the year, and thankfully Hill was no worse for wear – he returned six months later and won by first-round KO.
6. Randy Brown vs. Alex Oliveira, UFC 261
Randy Brown has, for quite some time, been a very fun depth piece in the UFC welterweight division, and I’ve been waiting for him to hit his breakout. A 2-0 2021 was a nice start – even better was the fact that it started off with a highlight-reel submission of Alex “Cowboy” Oliveira, one of the division’s toughest and most respected veterans.
That’s not your run of the mill rear-naked choke – Brown’s doing that with one arm, using his impressive pure strength and a strong grip on Oliveira’s right shoulder to generate the squeeze. A one-armed rear-naked choke isn’t completely unheard of, but not everyone’s got the physical tools to pull it off. Brown does, and produced one of the most impressive submissions of 2021.
5. Jordan Leavitt vs. Matt Sayles, UFC Vegas 45
You gotta love Jordan Leavitt. A 26-year-old lightweight with what has been described as “intense theater kid energy,” he’s the last guy you’d expect to fight other men for money. But Leavitt’s already made his mark early in his UFC career. Leavitt debuted with a slam KO of veteran Matt Wiman in just 22 seconds last December. And just last week, Leavitt pulled off my personal favorite submission: an inverted triangle choke.
Those things just look so goddamn cool. The all-time gold standard is Toby Imada on a young Jorge Masvidal back in 2009, and ever since you’ve only rarely seen them pulled off. It’s just the third such submission ever completed in UFC history, joining Luke Rockhold on Tim Boetsch in 2014 and Cole Miller on Dan Lauzon in 2010.
Big points for hitting a rare submission, bigger points for doing it at the highest level, and biggest points for doing my specific favorite. That’ll get you in the top five.
4. Ibragim Askhabov vs. Georgiy Tsugkiev, ACA Young Eagles 18
As always, however, you’re usually going to have to go to the regional scene to see the truly crazy shit. I give you Russian featherweights Ibragim Askhabov and Georgiy Tsugkiev – who entered this April fight with records of 1-2 and 4-2 respectively – and Askhabov putting his opponent completely to sleep with a buggy choke.
The buggy choke is a relatively new addition to the BJJ canon – as the story goes, a white belt training under Ralph Gracie thought the choke up a few years ago, and when he suddenly started using it to repeatedly tap out much more experienced opponents, people began to take notice.
It’s only ever been successfully used a few times in MMA, and never on a big stage – Luis Pena notably attempted one on Matt Frevola in a UFC fight in 2019, but didn’t finish the fight with it. And of the few times it’s ever been pulled off – and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve come across clips of it happening – there’s no way it’s ever been this dramatic.
Tsugkiev battles as hard as he can. He goes to his knees and tries to power out of it. He tries punching Askhabov in the face. Nothing works. Over the course of about 35 seconds, you can watch Tsugkiev’s consciousness slowly leave him. For the combination of creativity, impact and cinematics, it’s one of the best submissions of 2021.
3. Mateus Santos vs. Alexander Volodin, Open FC 2
I love watching submission grappling, but I’m far from an expert. I don’t have much firsthand experience outside of some catch wrestling. And one of my favorite experiences is when someone pulls out a submission I’ve never seen before, and I get to learn all about it – it feels like I’m discovering a whole new corner of combat that I was previously completely unaware of.
It still happens every now and then. Last year, the one that stood out most was McKee’s 100% neck crank on Darrion Caldwell, my Submission of the Year for 2020. And this year, it’s whatever the hell this thing was Brazilian bantamweight Mateus Santos pulled out to beat Alexander Volodin in Russia back in February.
This is all within the first minute of the fight – Volodin, who entered with a 7-1 record, has Santos in danger from an omoplata. So Santos slides his head underneath Volodin’s right leg and turns it into a calf slicer, using HIS OWN HEAD as the fulcrum point to apply the pressure to Volodin’s calf and secure the tap.
What the fuck are you supposed to do if you’re Alexander Volodin in that moment? How are you supposed to see that counter coming? This was LUDICROUSLY creative by Mateus Santos! If it wasn’t for these next two truly inconceivable submissions, this would be No. 1 with a bullet.
2. Anthony Hernandez vs. Rodolfo Vieira, UFC 258
Perhaps the single most shocking result of 2021 didn’t happen in a title fight, main event or even a main card. It came in a prelim fight in February that only the hardest of hardcores was really paying attention to. But if you know… you know. Almost a year later, and I still can’t believe it actually happened.
Hernandez is a pretty good grappler in an MMA context: the 28-year-old middleweight is a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu who’s shown off a nice submission acumen, securing six tapouts in his eight pro wins. But there’s an incredible gap between being an effective MMA grappler and being Rodolfo Vieira. Over the last decade, Vieira has carved a legacy as one of the greatest Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors of all time, winning five world championships, seven World Cups and gold in the 2015 ADCCs.
Vieira had not been submitted in competition since 2011, and that was by Dean Lister, himself a submission grappling legend (and UFC veteran). Heading into their fight, the odds on Hernandez winning by submission were +3000. But after dominating the first round, Vieira gassed badly in the second, and Hernandez took advantage – still, seeing Hernandez actually tap him with a guillotine choke was so insane that it didn’t feel real.
Make no mistake: this was like a pretty good high school basketball player winning a one-on-one game with Kevin Durant by throwing down a windmill dunk on his head out of nowhere. And even though the submission itself was nothing crazy – a common guillotine – it’s one of the biggest and best of the year, easily.
They call Rodolfo Vieira the “Black Belt Hunter”… but they didn’t say shit about purple belts!
- Andre Muniz vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, UFC 262
2021 was quite a year for all-time grappling icons getting absolutely stunned. But even among the greatest grapplers to ever live, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza stands out. Jacare has put together a resume that puts even a legend like Vieira to shame: two ADCC titles and eight world BJJ championships, to say nothing of being arguably one of the best and most successful middleweights in MMA history.
Heading into his fight with Andre Muniz back in May, Jacare had never been submitted in MMA competition. Jacare isn’t just known for his amazing BJJ skill, but also for his toughness – he once famously allowed Roger Gracie to break his arm in the 2004 world finals, rather than tap out to the armbar, knowing he’d win the match on points if he survived long enough. That scene improbably repeated itself against Muniz. Yes, Jacare once again refused to tap. But Andre Muniz – a relative upstart – broke his fucking arm.
Muniz is one hell of a grappler in his own right, a third-degree black belt who has 15 submissions in an extremely promising MMA career. But being the first fighter to submit Jacare is an accomplishment that puts everything else he’s done in his career to shame – no matter how high Muniz flies, this will be one of the biggest highlights.
As they say, there’s levels to this. We thought Jacare was on a completely different level, and for so long, he was. But in doing something we previously thought wasn’t possible, Andre Muniz earns a rightful place as Submission of the Year winner.
The Big Fight 