The first submission that Bas Rutten learned was a guillotine and he was
nasty with it, forcing a lot of rope escapes and tapping guys in Pancrase. Evan Tanner also had one of the most underrated triangles.
A toe hold isn't really a
foot lock. He's not trying to bend Tank's foot or crunch the small bones. A toe hold is basically a kimura on a foot. Just like a kimura is designed to torque the shoulder rather than bend the wrist - even though it looks like you're crushing the wrist - a toe hold is designed to twist the ankle, so what it damages is the ankle or the knee (whichever is weaker), not the foot itself. What you're seeing is someone
resisting a toe hold, and just like the way to fight off a kimura is to try to straighten your arm, the way to resist a toe hold is to try to straighten your leg. The bend is a combination of Tank trying to straighten his leg while Mir is trying to keep his grip on it and twist it.
And fun fact: Ken Shamrock called UFC 41 with Mike Goldberg, so aside from Ken and Tank's rivalry from back in the day, it's cool to think about Mir securing a leg lock while the man calling the action was the first fighter to ever win with a leg lock in the UFC
