UFC 146: Frank Mir and the 25 Most Accomplished Submission Artists in History

Submissions are what make MMA MMA.

So it doesn't get much more MMA to talk about great submissions. And when you've got one of the sport's greats in this area challenging for a title, as Frank Mir will do this weekend when he fights Junior Dos Santos for the heavyweight belt at UFC 146, the talk gravitates toward great submission artists.

And when it comes to that, this is it. This, as the cast of PTI would say, is the list.

Presented herewith is the only list of great submission artists you'll ever need. Beware the cheap imitators. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and beware those who bemoan what they refer to as the subjective nature of these types of rankings. They only say things like that because they are, in all honesty, hateful people. No other explanation is possible, except maybe that they fear the truth. Hateful or fearful. Take your pick, denigrators.

All others, please enjoy this list of the 25 best submission artists in the history of mixed martial arts as an organized sport on the third planet from the sun. Rankings are based on number of submission wins (both absolute and as a percentage of the overall record), quality/ferocity of attack, length of career, strength of opponents and promotions, and overall pedigree in training and international competitions outside MMA.

Honorable Mention: Travis Fulton

He hasn't exactly done it against top-flight competition, but when you have a world-record 132 MMA wins by submission, you get a mention on this list.  

25. Jake Shields

Shields' deliberative style doesn't make him the world's most electrifying fighter, but his 10 submission wins are enough to land the Cesar Gracie black belt here.

What would get him higher? How about a couple of subs under the Zuffa banner? In six combined bouts for Strikeforce and the UFC, Shields is 5-1 but has claimed only one submission during that tenure. 

24. Jason Miller

Yes, I know he lost to Shields, and I know his career (the fighting part of it, anyway) has hit a bit of a lull of late.

However, "Mayhem" Miller, still just 31 years old, has 13 submission wins on his 23-8 (1) professional record. His qualifications are still superior overall to Shields for these purposes, especially because Shields didn't tap him. And anytime you have Kazushi Sakuraba—no matter how diminished—on your victims list, you've accomplished something as a fighter.

As he may have told you during one of his 20-25 daily media interviews, Mayhem also likes to do it with a little bit of personality. One of the stories (one of the fighting ones, anyway) happened in the pictured fight against Mark Moreno. Miller threw the shaka sign (aka, the universal gesture for "hang loose") at the Hawaiian faithful before throwing their countryman into a decisive armbar. 

23. Rousimar Palhares

You can try to run, Dave Branch. But there will be no escape.

Palhares has 10 of 14 wins by submission, including six by his signature heel hook, a move so dangerous it's off limits in many grappling competitions.

He doesn't have decades of pedigree, but the naked aggression with which he finishes, and the eerie but distinct soundtrack of metal screws rattling against bone that accompanies each of his attempts, make him one of the most feared jiu-jitsu finishers in the history of cage fighting.

22. Jeff Monson

No question "The Snowman's" best fighting days are behind him. But your best fighting days would be behind you, too, if you were 41 years old and had nearly 60 contests under your belt.

Not only can Monson claim 25 submission victories, he's also a two-time Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) Submission Wrestling champion. That is not easy to do even once. 

21. Satoru Kitaoka

Another purveyor of the nasty leg lock, Kitaoka made ("broke"?!!?) most of his bones in the venerated Pancrase promotion. Fifteen of his 29 wins came by submission, and of those eight came by heel hook, Achilles lock or toe hold.

Never heard of this guy before? Carlos Condit has. So has Takanori Gomi. An Achilles lock on Gomi secured Kitaoka the Sengoku lightweight title in 2009.

20. Renato Sobral

If Rousimar Palhares is the crown prince of dangerous submissions, Renato Sobral is, I don't know, the Duke of York.

Palhares likes the leg locks. Babalu's weapon of choice is the choke, which got him eight of 14 career submission wins.

The real distinguishing factor is what happened after Babalu anaconda-choked David Heath out of his faculties in 2007. Babalu received as a prize his UFC walking papers, and to this day remains the only fighter to be kicked out of the UFC for a submission. 

19. Masakazu Imanari

Another merciless leg shredder, Imanari has 16 of 25 pro wins by tapout. Most recently, he got his first W in the ONE FC promotion with a reverse heel hook.

18. Jeremy Horn

The 89-21-5 Horn claims 61 wins by submission, many of which came against serious competition. Chael Sonnen (I know, I know, but still) and Josh Burkman are among the vanquished opponents. 

The biggest feather in Horn's cap, though, may be the one identifying him as the only man to submit Chuck Liddell.  

17. Miguel Torres

It's unfortunate for Torres that the UFC doesn't hand out a Guard of the Night bonus. If it did, he'd be sleeping in a house made out of Da Vinci paintings right about now.

That's a super-hilarious way of saying his jiu-jitsu game is tight like Tupperware. When you hear that patented burp, it means you've lost. Torres has yet to find his groove (or notch a submission win) in the UFC. However, his 23 career sub Ws hint that the former WEC champ maybe, possibly, just might have the tools to turn it around.

16. Megumi Fujii

Not so fast, Ronda Rousey. I like you and all, but if you want to be the submission artist in women's MMA, you'll need to take a number behind Megumi Fujii.

Rousey is 5-0, with all five wins coming by first-round armbar. Fujii, a black belt in judo and BJJ, is 25-2 with 19 submission wins. She lost at Bellator 69 just last weekend and at age 38 might be thinking about hanging it up.

If she does, she can do so knowing she blazed a wide trail, which she was then able to pave with tendons and bones. That's hot. 

15. Matt Hughes

Even though he has 20 wins by submission, Hughes is more Norman Rockwell than Michelangelo when it comes to this phase of the game (unless you consider the headlock a refined combat maneuver, in which case thanks again for reading, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan).

However, he deserves a fairly high ranking because those arm bars and rear-nakeds were (and maybe still are, who knows) just so filthily effective. And he can lock them on in all the clutchest moments.

His 2003 standing choke on Frank Trigg to defend, once again, the welterweight strap will always be one of the greatest individual submission performances in UFC history. 

14. Masakatsu Funaki

The legendary Funaki has 39 wins by tap. That's a very high number. He also co-founded Pancrase, a promotion known for valuing itself some funky-ass submission moves.

Back in 1994, when cars were still started by hand crank, Funaki used a toe hold to deliver a young man named Bas Rutten his first loss in the MMA ring. 

13. Ronaldo Souza

The shredded and aggressive "Jacare" can't be denied once he has the opening. The ADCC and BJJ world champion has had the opening nine times in his career (and that doesn't count three taps from strikes).

During his tenure in Pride and then Strikeforce, among other promotions, the ex-Strikeforce middleweight champ has subbed the likes of Alexander Shlemenko and Olympic wrestler Matt Lindland.

12. Demian Maia

The multi-time ADCC world champ may be one of the best jiu-jitsu players to come out of Brazil since Brazilians first took an interest in the sport. He's still relatively young in MMA, but has earned eight of 15 wins by submission. 

Maia entered the UFC under a mountain of hype and initially lived up to it and then some by tapping, in succession, Ryan Jensen, Ed Herman, Jason MacDonald, Nate Quarry and Chael Sonnen.

He's cooled off a little bit since, going 4-4 with no submissions (partially due to his new commitment to the standup game). However, it's probably just a matter of time before the third-degree BJJ black belt gets his arms around another neck.

11. Josh Barnett

Hard to know what else to say about the great catch wrestler that hasn't been said a time or two thousand. I thought (unfortunately, aloud) that he was going to prevail over Daniel Cormier in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix.

After the loss, the rubble from all those burned bridges seems to be hemming him in a little. Regardless of what his future holds, his 17 submission wins—including the rear-naked choke on Yuki Kondo that netted him the Pancrase openweight title—ensure he'll always have a spot on this list.

10. Fabricio Werdum

Fabricio Werdum frightens me.

He entered a new strata when he tapped Fedor Emelianenko. And with the striking he flashed against Roy Nelson—if he can bring that skill set with the BJJ when he tangles with Mike Russow next month, he will crush Mike Russow. And then, who knows? He could be a very serious threat.

He and Alistair Overeem are due for a rubber match at some point...just saying.

I got a little sidetracked there. However, the multi-time ADCC and Mundial champion has eight of 15 MMA wins by submission. He's 34, but appears to have plenty of fight left. If that's the case, he could be in a position to shoot even farther up this list. 

9. Rickson Gracie

What's in the blender there, Rickson?

When I was checking out numbers, I was surprised to see Renzo Gracie "only" netted seven submissions (excluding one from strikes) in a 13-7-1 career. That's 53 percent of his career wins.

That's all right. Pretty good. Cousin Rickson, though, fighting mainly in his late 30s and early 40s, went 11-0, with every win coming from a submission (including two from strikes). That's 82 percent of wins by submissions without counting strike-taps.

I get a little grief for favoring the Gracies—and hey, maybe I do—but a list like this cannot be over-Gracied, in my opinion. In this particular case, both fighters are exceptional, though they ultimately lose some points for relatively short runs and weak strength of schedules. 

8. Fedor Emelianenko

Emelianenko's meat-and-potatoes submission game sometimes masks its deadly efficiency. No wasted motion, no bells, no whistles. He uses his incomparable core strength to explode into and out of things, he leverages, wins, goes home, unplugs, waits.

Against a true submission artist, however, he struggles. And I'm not just talking about Werdum. Big Nog gave him a fight. Ditto Ricardo Arona and Babalu Sobral. 

In terms of the phases of a fight, Prime Emelianenko didn't do any one thing brilliantly. His brilliance was more diffuse and largely because he did a little of everything very well.

Also on the plus side for Fedor is this, the greatest submission-related photo in MMA history, in which Fedor clings to Hong Man Choi's arm like an aquatic parasite. 

7. Frank Mir

Frank Mir keeps getting overlooked. And Mir keeps doing things like breaking people's arms.

And he's done it consistently against the very best. The only man to ever submit Big Nog. Only man to ever submit Brock Lesnar (no, it's true). Only man to ever win a UFC belt by fracturing one of the limbs of its previous holder.

He has nine of 16 wins by submission. You know the part that really sets him apart, though? The records show he used seven different moves to get those nine submissions. That's an insane level of density in the ol' skill set there.   

6. B.J. Penn

All historical discussions of Penn's submission game have to start with the mention that he was the first non-Brazilian Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion. Did you know that's why they call him "The Prodigy"?

Penn uses that unparalleled physical and mental flexibility to outflank his opponents time and time again.

And he does it in the greatest moments, too, using his BJJ to finish Matt Hughes to win his first belt, Joe Stevenson to start his stint as lightweight champ and Kenny Florian to defend said championship (pictured).   

5. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

A great, great submission artist because of the skills he has not only on the outside, but on the inside.

I know...that was cheesy, but it's true for Big Nog. Twenty wins by submission in 33 total victories. He has a knack for just pulling something out, somehow, someway, even after spending much of a fight on the wrong side of a one-sided fight.

Now transitioning into a bit of an elder statesmen, Nogueira wears every one of those beatings on his mug. He's a warrior, man. And if you want to talk about great submission artists in the more literal sense of the phrase, here one is.

4. Shinya Aoki

As with Mir, Aoki does his submission hunting with extreme prejudice. Unlike Mir, he's done it longer, with 19 of 30 wins coming by tapout.

Also like Mir, Aoki has a wide and varied attack. Again, however, it's even more so. Aoki has two wins by gogoplata, one from standing armlock, one by flying triangle choke, two by freaking neck crank, and the list goes on.

Oh, and also like Mir, he breaks bones. Who can forget the hammerlock-from-hell-into-bird-flip sequence that he slapped on Mizuto Hirota? 

3. Ken Shamrock

Ken Shamrock notched 22 submission wins in his pro career. That's 79 percent of his 28 total wins.

And as fans know, that hit list reads like a who's who of MMA's Bronze Age. Dan Severn. Bas Rutten. Masakatsu Funaki twice. Kimo Leopoldo. Maurice Smith. 

Ken's adoptive brother Frank, with 10 submission wins of his own, was pretty decent, too.

2. Kazushi Sakuraba

The Gracie Hunter has to be involved in any of these "all time" lists. He has 19 of 26 wins by submission. That's a percentage of 73 percent—incredibly high, but still lower than Shamrock.

What make the difference is that he did it against the absolute best. He subbed two Gracies, Renzo and Royler, and broke Renzo Gracie's arm. (He also decisioned Royce and Ryan, of course.)

However, here's the one that gets me every time: Guess how many guys have submitted Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in Jackson's 42 professional fights?

Two.

Jon Jones eight months ago, and Kazushi Sakuraba.

1. Royce Gracie

How about this: I'll spare you the "he started it all" talk if you spare me the "he would suck if he fought today" talk.

Instead, I'll just skip to one very telling statistic. Royce Gracie still holds the record for most submission wins inside the UFC Octagon with 11. I realize he fought in the tourney era. Frankly, I don't care. That's an impressive record, and it's going to be tough for anyone to break.