Saturday was filled with grappling action and once again a mastery of heel hooks was on display for the world to see. Both Jake Shields and Gordon Ryan pulled off big wins with versions of the technique.
Shields faced Lyoto Machida during the Submit Cancer charity event presented by Fight to Win Pro. The American used his patented wrestling and top control style to maintain position against the former UFC champion.
Machida had his moments early in the match, after getting off to a slow start, but it would be Shields who would force the action late in the game. Before it was over, Machida would be forced to tap via an inside heel hook with mere seconds left before the end.
Ryan was also successful with the maneuver as he became the first man to ever submit grappling star Keenan Cornelius in a sub-only event. They met in the feature matchup at a Grappling Industries event in New York.
After 90 minutes of competition, Ryan was able to complete the maneuver and force Cornelius to submit. This is yet another major moment in 2016 for Ryan, which includes winning the EBI Absolute tournament back in July after stepping in as a last minute replacement for his teammate, Eddie Cummings.
Both of these wins can be linked back to famed instructor John Danaher. Ryan is a well-known member of the Danaher Death Squad that features himself, Cummings and Garry Tonon. Shields recently started training with that group to prepare for his fight against Rousimar Palhares back in 2015. That training allowed him to implement the attacks into his game and helped bring about the victory on Saturday. Danaher took to his Instagram account to praise Shields’s improvement.
“Mr. Shields was able to show his great improvements in lower body submissions by locking in a very finely applied heel hook to force a submission and show that new skills can indeed be built on to an established game, and that change is always possible if a commitment is made,” Danaher wrote. “It was a great result for Mr. Shields and a testament to his dedication to come such a long way to learn and in confidence to use new weapons in a battle against such a skilled foe.”
Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida was also successful in his no-gi match against former UFC competitor Eliot Marshall.