Shinya Aoki slapped on a fight-ending rear naked neck crank on Lyle Beerbohm within 1:33 into the first round of their main card fight in Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley last Saturday night at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California.
With his 17th submission win, the veteran lightweight Aoki now sports a 27-5-0-1 fight record and proves that he is truly one of MMA’s elite grapplers.
He also proves that a fighting style consisting of effective takedowns, killer submissions, and not much else can still guarantee wins in the world’s top MMA arenas—which brings us to Jake Shields, who seemingly belongs to the same school of fighting.
Shields (26-4-1 with 11 wins by submission), as we all know, will challenge for Georges St-Pierre’s UFC Welterweight Title this April 30 at UFC 129 in Toronto.
To give Shields’s striking skills some credit, he has chalked up three KO victories and drew the following post-fight commendation from Robbie Lawler, whom he submitted with a guillotine choke in the first canto of their Strikeforce main event fight in 2009:
“His striking was good. He threw a lot of kicks. He worked. He threw hands and wasn’t shying away from standup, that’s for sure.”
But where was his striking during his split-decision win over Martin Kampmann in UFC 121 last October of 2010?
Beerbohm may be light-years from being the lightweight equivalent of the Canadian UFC Champion, but if Shields can takedown St-Pierre like what he did to on-paper-better-wrestler Dan Henderson, then he will open up opportunities to finish off the champion with a submission hold, or eke out a lay-and-pray decision win to snatch the title (ho-hum).
Take note: Shields is a two-time All-American wrestler and Junior U.S. Freestyle Nationals/World Team Trials Qualifier and University U.S. Freestyle Nationals/World Team Trials Qualifier. In submission grappling, he is a 2005 ADCC Submission Wrestling Bronze Medalist, 2005 Pan American BJJ Championships Gold Medalist, 2005 Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Open Superfight Champion and 3x Champion in the Grapplers Quest Advance Division.
Shields’s only chance of beating St-Pierre is down on the ground, if he wins by any other way, I’m going to bet on the lottery again after a very long time.
I think we have Manny Pacquiao’s future MMA equivalent lurking here somewhere…for those interested in Philippine MMA, check out here the official website of our country’s premier MMA organization, the Universal Reality Combat Championship, and our top MMA online forum at PinoyMMA.com.
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