I didn't think it was possible for Aoki to top his own record of weird submissions (including gogoplatas, triangles from all kinds of angles, a waki gatame, and a standing hammerlock), but wow... his mounted gogoplata was one of the coolest subs I ever saw in MMA ! Eddie Bravo must be proud !
One of the best subs of all time! Here it is: http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x5s9hc Skip to 5:30 for the sub.
I think at this point, Aoki is the most dangerous submission artist in MMA. There are better grapplers but no one is better at pulling submissions out from anywhere then Aoki.
Dammit i just duplicated this thread! Aoki is sick, he is one of the few that uses grappling efficiently in MMA. He takes minimal damage while still imposing his ground game.
Is Aoki a student of Eddie Bravo? I was under the impression that he had trained with Bravo on several occations but that he was not actually a student of Bravo's... could be wrong though... can anyone clarify?
Aoki is a black belt under yuki nakai(who is a bad a$$ in his own right), he has trained with bravo from time to time. From everything i've read aoki is a very open minded guy who is always learning/trying new things. I know bravo is the person most associated with rubber guard but he is proably not the first/only person to have worked with it, ie nino schembri.
Aoki has used that before in shooto I think. I've seen footage of him doing it. Anyways, I love that moment before the person taps, like you know the subs on, and it's only a matter of time before the tap haha. Soooo satsfying to watch.
He is student of nakai, but i think nakai is more a shooto coach and talent scout. He get from him his purple, brown and blackbelt when he wasn't serious in bjj, just competing and winning championship after quitting judo. He said in an interview that after loosing to watanabe by point start to not look down on jiujitsu and train seriously and went to marcelo garcia gym to train (he then beat watanabe in the rematch)