A viral submission in mixed martial arts took place over the weekend at the Full Contact Contender 19 event in the town of Bolton in Greater Manchester.
34-year-old Jonno Mears pulled off a WWE-style Boston Crab or what many may know as The Walls of Jericho submission on his opponent Aaron Jones at the event on Saturday. The submission move has gotten a ton of buzz on the Internet.
“I’m very shocked at the response,” Mears told MMA Fighting. “I knew it would be good, but not this amazing.”
Mears said he definitely is aware of a lot of the pro wrestling moves as he once practiced them on his brother and brought it into his MMA training.
“I loved and studied all the moves,” Mears said of the professional wrestling holds. “I wasn’t great at remembering the names, as I was trying to do them on my younger brother.”
Mears continued on saying, “So I played with it in my training and kept it in my mind knowing it would be funny and somewhat new.”
The 2-0 pro added that he often plays around with “silly submission attempts” during training and things just worked out in a scramble during this fight.
“When I took him down, he turned to all fours quick, but I managed to chin strap him and was going to try the Peruvian necktie,” Mears said. “But he tucked his chin, so I jumped to his back, then the crab came into my head. Then, during the scramble, I was going to turn into mount and give it up, but I seen he covered up during me striking him, so I thought why not I just try? And I was shocked myself I got a hold of his legs in a scramble.”
Do you think we will see more Boston Crab submissions pulled off in MMA? Let’s discuss this in the comment section!
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/2/2017.