



God damn, Shinya Aoki sucks on his feet.

Let's get it out there right from the start. He has some nice roundhouse kicks and knees (as you would expect from someone working at Evolve MMA, with about 40 significant Muay Thai champions as coaches) but he's a holy mess with his hands and attempts to make up for it by diving wildly after takedowns, or trying to run before he's confident that he can walk—as when he threw a sloppy, overcommitted elbow at Eddie Alvarez and got himself knocked out.

What cannot be denied is just how brilliant Shinya Aoki is on the ground, and what he has accomplished there. Aoki has fought a who's who of mixed martial arts, fighting up to seven times a year, and winning the vast majority of those fights. But not only is Aoki brilliant on the ground, he is an innovator. He doesn't just copy other people's ideas, master the basics and try to force them down his opponents throat—he creates, and he isn't afraid to play with the unproven ideas of others.

Most memorably, Aoki showed this in 2006 against a man who was soon to become his long term rival, Joachim Hansen. Hellboy, as the Norwegian was known, was a brilliant combination of power puncher and grappler, and one of the most exciting lightweights in MMA. Hansen is most famous for getting into brawls, using crazy helicopter sweeps into armbar attempts, and knocking out numerous opponents by timing them with knees as they ducked in.

Early Shades of Brilliance

Aoki, in his PRIDE FC debut, submitted Hansen with a gogoplata. The first gogoplata in mainstream mixed martial arts history. If you don't know what a gogoplata is, there's no shame there. It is a rubber guard technique wherein the leg is passed over the trapped shoulder and under the top player's chin. In Aoki's most recent book it is simply called a foot choke. It was bizarre, but it worked.

Eddie Bravo had been preaching about the gogoplata for years, but few had cared for it. Aoki, however, perfected it and when the time to battle test it came, the technique passed with flying colours. Bravo's ideas were vindicated, for a while at least. Ultimately the world soon forgot and treated his half guard system with the same kind of raised eyebrows they once reserved for the gogoplata... then Bravo electric chair swept Royler Gracie multiple times and almost destroyed Gracie's knee with one of his crazy leg locks. It is always important to remember that just because you haven't seen something, doesn't mean it can't be made to work—hell, you could end up being the guy who makes it work!

Aoki had shown plenty of creative flair up even before his fight with Hansen though. When he took the Shooto welterweight title from Akira Kikuchi (a stud in his own right) Aoki had pulled guard on the standing Kikuchi. And when Kikuchi refused to drop to the floor, Aoki just played guard on him standing!



Aoki has never been afraid to pull guard. Here he jumps guard on JZ Cavalcante.

But even in Aoki's third professional fight, against Keith Wisnieski, he showed a technique we had never seen before. Well, we had... but in Judo demonstrations and karate forms, never in a professional fight. The winding armlock, or wakigatame, is an enormously powerful technique, but the idea of getting a standing submission out of a squirming opponent has been long since discarded. Aoki wasn't out for the submission though, Aoki was out for the kill. Gripping Wisnieski's overhook by the wrist, Aoki unravelled the clinch and span out to hyper-extend his opponent's elbow across his body.

Here's the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, demonstrating the exact same technique a hundred years earlier. Nobody thought this would work in mixed martial arts.

DREAM Lightweight Grand Prix

PRIDE was bought out and killed off by the UFC shortly after Aoki arrived but he was hired as a staple of the new DREAM company's roster. DREAM, carrying on PRIDE's great tradition (one which I sorely miss in mixed martial arts), began with a series of grand prix tournaments to decide its title holders.

In the first round of the lightweight grand prix, Aoki was matched against Brazilian wrecking machine, JZ Cavalcante. Most thought Aoki was due a beating and that this dangerous sprawl and brawler would take him out with ease. The match was cut short with Aoki struggling to get a takedown as JZ thumbed his eyes, then struck him in the spine with 12-6 elbows. The bout was ruled a no contest, but things hadn't looked good for Aoki.

The rematch was one of the finest clinics of Aoki's career as he demonstrated so many elements of his grappling game. While Aoki was in trouble early, as he leapt on a leg lock and ate axe kicks to the head, he soon recovered, took JZ's back for an extended period, and kept the Brazilian on the defensive with constant submission attempts from guard.



Not a great start to any fight!

The bout made a great case for “PRIDE rules”, or at least the allowance of “vale tudo kicks”— kicks when both fighters are on the ground. Aoki did his own share of kicking from his back, for instance, here he uses upkicks from a De La Riva guard with a cross grip.

The bout went the distance, but Cavalcante spent the whole fight on defence and, as the final bell rang, was deep in an armbar attempt. This stemmed off of a beautiful omoplata from rubber guard. Aoki was able to figure four his legs and slide the free foot through to hook it behind JZ's far leg, largely limiting JZ's movement.

In the next round of the Grand Prix, Aoki was able to score another gogoplata victory (making him the only fighter in MMA to own two), this time from the mount!

The gogoplata from mount can actually be more applicable to MMA than to no-gi grappling or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu because of the tendency of fighters on the underside of the mount to bear hug the waist to prevent the opponent from striking down on them cleanly. Aoki would step his leg up and trap one arm, just as he would from Mission Control in rubber guard, then slide his shin over the face and under the chin. In his first book (which is well worth a look), Aoki demonstrates a few options off of this position.

Against Nagata, Aoki's right hand was posting, rather than hugging his knee, but you can't argue with results.

Next Aoki met Caol Uno, a bit of a legend in Japan but a curious fighter who will lose most fights that he's supposed to win, but win a few where he's a massive underdog. If Uno is famous for one thing, it's his submission defence.

From the bell, Aoki was all over Uno. One of the curious things about Aoki is the ease with which he performs the simple walk-over to mount takedown that most learn in a self defence section on their first day of BJJ. Yet Aoki does it against world class fighters...

The fight was a case of Aoki constantly on the attack, and Uno never having a chance to get anything going. Aoki's back control was on full display again, as he used his long limbs to grapevine Uno's legs, from inside or outside.

Notice the usual body triangle with the grapevine on the outside in the top picture, and a reverse version in the bottom one. Aoki will often use the latter type of back control to position himself on the side of an opponent, hoping to shoot a triangle, or extend his legs out and come up to an almost mount with leg control, to rain down a few punches.



From Aoki's first book. Well worth buying.

One of the best moments in the bout came as Aoki opened up his back mount, and allowed Uno to explode up into a triangle attempt. Again, Aoki covers set ups to this in his book, but the impressive part is how convinced Uno was by the bait.

In the final of the tournament, Aoki met late replacement, Joachim Hansen for a second time. Hansen was able to catch Aoki with his heavy hands and win the tournament, but Aoki soon avenged his loss in a rubber match, wherein he armbarred Hellboy with just seconds remaining in the fight. A cracking trilogy, well worth a watch!

The Further Peculiarities of Mr. Aoki

Perhaps the most unusual facet of Aoki's game—aside from his willingness to pull guard—is his crippling leg lock game. Training with Masakazu Iminari, the so-called “tenth Dan in leg locks”, Aoki's grasp on lower limb submissions seems just as good as Iminari's, but built into a far more complete grappling game (complete with takedowns). Aoki is happy to jump on a leg off of a single leg takedown attempt, when an opponent is sprawling or, as he famously did against Eddie Alvarez—as an escape during his opponent's transition to mount.



A beautiful trip from Alvarez, but as he moves to mount, Aoki is able to get a knee in the middle and move to an inverted heel hook. The angle on Alvarez's foot as he taps is not pleasant.

What fascinates me about the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu game in general is that techniques can be written off as low percentage or ineffective, then brought back by some phenomenal young grappler, storming through competition. The most obvious example I can think of right now is the wrist lock game of Claudio Calasans. Wrist locks used to be looked on as something of a “cheese tactic”, but Calasans attacks with them so often and so ferociously that they come together beautifully with other elements of his game.

Similarly, as Robert Drysdale put it, leg locks used to be frowned upon as “almost immoral” in no-gi competition, now they are attempted so frequently that they have an enormous effect on matches.

On the “almost immoral” side of things, Aoki has pioneered the neck-crank from the back in MMA. He has stopped numerous fights with it, where other fighters would be desperate to get their forearm under the chin and lock in a rear naked choke. It makes viewers very uncomfortable, because Aoki has shown that he'll break legs and arms if his opponents don't tap quick enough, a broken neck in MMA would not be good for its status as a sport. But equally, it seems so much easier to find against opponents who are desperately keeping their chin down, and nothing in the rules prohibits it.

Aoki continues to develop old school ideas, too. You will remember in that Kikuchi fight that he attempted to pull Kikuchi's arm up behind his back in a hammerlock style. Well Aoki is constantly looking to pass an opponent's hand behind their own back. Against Hirota, Aoki used this to pass the guard (in a style similar to the one which Mario Sperry used to employ way back in the day, dubbed “the one armed man”), then proceeded to break Hirota's arm with a hammerlock.



And act like an ass afterwards...

Here's Aoki in his most recent book demonstrating the use of the hook across the back (which he used to pull standing guard on Kikuchi) to apply an arm lock across the back on the far arm. A gimmicky move which you have probably seen in books and DVDs.

But this year at the 2014 worlds, Michelle Nicolini tore Tammi Musumeci's arm across the latter's back in a similar way, with an entry from spider guard. Is it a common competition technique? Goodness, no. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't work!

Just as Nicolini's arm attack had us in shock, Aoki's hammerlock on Hirota was something stunning and, to the MMA world, absolutely new! And that is the reason to watch Aoki. He's one dimensional, he's almost embarrassing to watch on the feet, he's not got many top lightweights left to fight outside of the UFC, and when he's flipping off opponents with broken arms, he doesn't seem like a very nice person. But frankly, it's worth keeping up with him just because you never know what he'll try next. And you certainly can't fault the man for turning the same creativity to his wardrobe.



Pick up Jack Slack's new ebook, Fighting Karate at his blog Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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