While the number of submissions in most major shows are decreasing, the 2009 “M-1 Challenge Presented by Affliction” has quietly featured some of the best submissions of the year.
With a host of renowned submission specialists such as Team USA West’s Giva Santana, Finland’s Janne Tulirinta and Lucio Linhares, and Eduardo Pamplona of Brazil, M-1Global.com contributing writer Fabrice Deters has tried to create a way to eliminate subjectivity when trying to determine the top submission fighter for the current M-1 Challenge campaign.
He has devised a points system that awards three points per submission win recorded. In the event of a tie, the fighter with the least amount of time in the ring will move forward.
According to Deter’s rankings, French middleweight Christophe Dafreville currently leads the race for the ’09 “Submission Specialist of the Year Award” with a total of six points.
Showing tremendous improvement, Dafreville has recorded two submissions this season after entering the competition with just one career victory via tapout. Dafreville has not only submitted his only two opponents this year in the M-1 Challenge, but he has done it in style.
First, Dafreville executed a North-South choke on Rayco Silva at just 2:48 of round 1 during Team France’s victory over Team Spain in Japan this past April. He then returned for France’s recent 4-1 victory over England at an M-1 Challenge event held in Kansas City, where he submitted Matt Throrpe with a head and arm triangle at 4:32 of round 1. The outcome was surprising considering that Thorpe is one of the Challenge’s best submission fighters.
But Dafreville isn’t the only M-1 Challenge fighter with two submission wins to his credit this year. He’s joined at the top of the standings by both USA East’s Renato Migliaccio and Lloyd Marshbanks. The race for top submission specialist is close, as just 1:17 separates Dafreville from Migliaccio while just 1:36 separates him from Marshbanks.
Unfortunately, shoulder surgery will prevent Migliaccio from supplanting Dafreville, as his three month recovery time will cause him to miss USA East’s regular season finale scheduled for Aug. 15. However, Marshbanks is expected to compete for the third time this season and after submitting Emil Samoilov with a heel hook this past March and Toni Valtonen with a neck crank earlier this month, he rates as Dafreville’s toughest competition for the award.
While Dafreville and Marshbanks are neck-and-neck for the submission specialist award, pundits are wondering whether a fighter will be able to supplant Janne Tulirinta for “Submission of the Year.”
Tulirinta unofficially jumped to the top of the standings after submitting Benelux’s Tommy Depret with a beautiful standing D’Arce choke at 2:30 of round 1 during this year’s M-1 Challenge regular season opener on Feb. 21 in Tacoma, Wash. He fell behind in the race for best submission specialist after he recorded a standing TKO victory over Team USA East welterweight Anthony Ford just 11 seconds into their bout earlier this month.
If Marsbanks and Dafreville are both unable to record their third submission victory, Santana could make a late charge. After missing the team’s opener in Tacoma, Santana made his M-1 Challenge debut by submitting South Korea’s Min Suk Heo in Japan. The method of submission? If you guessed armbar submission, then you guessed right. It was the eleventh time in 12 victories that “The Arm Collector” had submitted an opponent by armbar.
Pictured: Christophe Dafreville
