This year’s Submission of the Year came with a little twist…
Who choked in 2019? More importantly, who pulled off a fancy choke, or something even more impressive? This year, there was really one name that ran away with the Submission of the Year race: Arkansas native Bryce Mitchell. And for good reason. Twisters are rare enough in MMA, but even more so in the UFC.
Heath Harshman: My favorite submission of the year has a catch. While Ben Askren’s submission of Robbie Lawler might have been controversial, it eventually got us to his match up with Jorge Masvidal, and one of the greatest KOs in UFC history. Without the clumsy refereeing and questionable “limp arm” we wouldn’t have gotten the knee from hell. Therefore, Askren submitting Lawler is the best submission of the year.
Jay Anderson: We know Bryce Michell’s favorite 90s movie, because it’s the same as his favorite submission: Twister. It’s hard not to award this one to the young featherweight; after all, he pulled off the move successfully at UFC on ESPN 7 for only the second time in the promotion’s history.
Michael Lynch: The Ovince St. Preux submission over Michał Oleksiejczuk stands out as Submission of the Year. It should be named the OSP choke at this point, he’s pulled it off four times in the UFC.
Ryan Fortune: Arkansas’ Bryce Mitchell managed to pull off a fantastic submission in December, when he submitted fellow prospect Matt Sayles via Twister in the very first round. The Twister was the second in UFC history (the first was Chan Sung Jung vs. Leonard Garcia back in 2011) and enabled Mitchell to extend his UFC record to three wins and zero losses. Maybe after that fine submission, Reebok will finally give Mitchell his desired camo shorts.
Joe McDonagh: Bryce Mitchell’s twister. A submission you almost never see. Bryce Mitchell is one of the most promising and entertaining prospects on the UFC roster and people need to realize this.
Josh Evanoff: Bryce Mitchell’s twister is the submission of the year. The twister is such a hard submission to pull off in general, especially against high level competition, but he did. Get that man his camo shorts already.
Gabriel Gonzalez: Bryce Mitchell’s Twister. A late entry but the fact that it has only ever been done once before in the UFC made this one my pick. The degree of difficulty on the submission made this one a contender on most lists, but Bryce Mitchell capitalizing on it to campaign for camouflage print Reebok shorts is clever icing on the cake.
Dan Doherty: Bryce Mitchell vs. Matt Sayles. I try to avoid picking things that happened too recently, but he hit a twister. Come on.
Mike McClory: Bryce Mitchel vs. Matt Sayles. Twister. That’s all that needs to be said. Oh and just the second one ever to be done in the UFC octagon. Well done Bryce Mitchel, you animal.
Keith Shillan: Bryce Mitchell’s sub of Matt Sayles at UFC Washington D.C, which was only the second twister in UFC history.
End result: Eight out of ten writers choose Bryce Mitchell doing the twist(er) as the Submission of the Year for 2019.
