If your gonna mention Chsiev I gotta throw in Satoru Kitaoka, Iminari, and Aoki. I know they have the shooto background but they are bjj guys too. Especially Aoki who's lineage goes back to the very beginning of bjj in Japan.
Aoki is one I always forget because once he got into MMA he stopped doing as many sub grappling and BJJ competitions. But yeah his style is hyper aggressive. He's still got it too. I thought he gave Garry Tonon more problems in their match than anyone I've seen face Garry recently besides JT Torres and maybe the ADCC Vagner Rocha match.
Yeah man. Those Japanese guys I mentioned, as far as I know, have trained together a whole lot and they all have a super aggressive style. Actually, they were all ahead of their time with the leglock game that they were actually winning high level MMA fights with. Fast forward 5-10 years and leglocks are the weapon of choice for so many top grapplers.
Great point in the leg locks. Aoki also was the guy that came up with the darce choke and spread it through japan. He wasn’t the first but he still came up with it on his own. He called it the spinning choke. And I think he was the first to come up with the Japanese necktie.
He definiutely doesn't. I have no proof of this but in 2015 after I saw his trials wins I picked him to win ADCC and I thought he had a decent shot to beat Lepri or Sousa or Durinho in the finals based on him being a more robust and athletic no gi guy. I did not expect him to flying armbar Lepri though. I thought he may win on takedown points or something. I even won some money on a friendly bet on that prediction which was nice.
