Sherdog.com’s 2015 Submission of the Year

3. Marcos Galvao vs. Joe Warren
Bellator 135
Friday, March 27
Winstar World Casino and Resort | Thackerville, Oklahoma
A lot can be said about a good submission. Between post-fight interviews, media analysis, fan discussion and barroom conversations, thousands of words spawn from in-cage action. Yet none of those words, in any kind of combination, can say as much as Joe Warren did with one wordless shriek.

After competing at the highest levels on the international wrestling stage, Warren carved out a name for himself as a tough, gritty fighter. His first two professional fights were against highly touted featherweights Chase Beebe and Norifumi Yamamoto -- both wins. From there, he worked his way up the Bellator MMA ranks, eventually taking its featherweight championship. He never logged any official title defenses, however. Instead he bounced around in weight classes -- including a controversial catchweight win over Marcos Galvao -- before getting knocked out by Pat Curran in his first featherweight title defense.

At 34 years old, coming off of two straight knockout losses, Warren had a career resurgence at bantamweight. He reeled off five straight wins that saw him become the Bellator interim and undisputed bantamweight champion, making Warren the first man in Bellator history to win a title at two different weight classes. His first defense came against a familiar foe in Galvao, the man who many believe was robbed of a victory against Warren four years before.

After that 2011 loss to Warren, Galvao entered the Bellator Season 5 bantamweight tournament, where he posted a close win over former World Extreme Cagefighting champ Beebe before another controversially close decision loss, this time against Alexis Vila. Galvao was far more successful in the Season 6 bantamweight tournament, beating three opponents before getting promptly knocked out in a title fight against Eduardo Dantas. He then posted three straight wins to earn another crack at the title, this time held by Warren.

The storyline was set, pitting the young Brazilian who had been on the unlucky side of judges’ scorecards against the veteran American who had a reputation -- fair or unfair -- of getting wins he did not deserve.

In the first round, Warren tried to outgrapple Galvao, and for the most part he did. He pressured the Brazilian throughout the round and landed the most significant shot of the round via an overhand right. He ended the frame in an ominous fashion, trying to jump onto Galvao’s back before slipping off and pushing “Loro” to the fence. It was not a landslide, but it looked like Warren took round one.

Warren, perhaps a little too brazen after the grappling success he had enjoyed in the first frame, immediately jumped onto Galvao’s back in the second. Galvao dropped to the floor and locked up a kneebar, slowly bending Warren’s leg back as the two-division champ looked frozen. Galvao abruptly put some juice into the submission, and Warren screamed in pain. Referee John McCarthy broke up the action, declaring Galvao the winner and new Bellator bantamweight champion.

After the fight, Warren complained about a premature stoppage and claimed he never tapped. While that may technically be true, anyone who understands the language of human pain knew instinctively that Warren submitted; if anything, screaming out loud in agony may be the most honest type of submission in existence.

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