9. Shinya Aoki
The amazing Aoki cracks this list after coming in fourth among the 10 greatest Japanese fighters ever. Even for those fans who weren't big fans of grapplers, Aoki was spellbinding to watch. His submissions were utterly unique, coming out of seemingly nowhere, made possible by Aoki's absurd flexibility. Nor did Aoki rely on a few go-to subs, as he could pull out literally anything out of his bag of tricks. Even on this list, perhaps no one was more creative, with a wider array of submissions. In terms of wrestling, Aoki was very good but not great, struggling to get the fight to the ground against foes with strong takedown defense. Among his wins over quality grapplers, Aoki decisioned Caol Uno, heel hooked Eddie Alvarez in their first encounter in just over 90 seconds, won via gogoplata and then an armbar of Joachim Hansen, got an Achilles lock of Tatsuya Kawajiri, dominated Marcus Aurelio on the cards, neck cranked Lyle Beerbohm in a little over 90 seconds, face locked Rich Clementi, and soundly beat fellow Japanese grappling ace Satoru Kitaoka.
Interestingly, Aoki's victory against another great grappler, Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro, was accomplished solely on the feet, and his win over Gesias Calvacante was mostly done in that arena, too. On the flipside, it should be noted that a number of better wrestlers were able to utterly neutralize Aoki's grappling and even slam and ground-and-pound him, including Eddie Alvarez in the rematch, Gilbert Melendez, Hayato Sakurai and Ben Askren. Yet, it's no surprise that with such unique submission brilliance, Aoki cracked the list.
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