3 Techniques Named After Fighters Who Changed the Game

In martial arts, a handful of techniques carry a person's name instead of a technical description. The Kimura is not called "reverse ude garami" in most gyms. The Ezekiel choke is not called "sode guruma jime." The Twister is not called "wrestler's guillotine." Each was renamed after a fighter — not because that fighter invented the move, but because that fighter proved it worked in a context where nobody expected it.

Most techniques in martial arts are described by their mechanics — "arm bar," "hip throw," "round kick." But when a technique crosses from one martial art into another and dominates, the receiving community often names it after the person who brought it. This article examines three such techniques: the Kimura (1951), the Ezekiel choke (1988), and the Twister (2003). Their stories span five decades, three continents, and the collision points where judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and wrestling met and changed each other forever.

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The Kimura lock is a shoulder lock that rotates the arm behind the back using a figure-four grip on the wrist. In judo it is called ude garami — "entangled arm lock." In catch wrestling it was the double wristlock. The technique existed for centuries before it had a person's name attached to it.

What happened. On October 23, 1951, Masahiko Kimura — a judoka who had not lost a match in fifteen years — faced Helio Gracie in a challenge match at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The fight drew 20,000 spectators. In the second round, Kimura secured the ude garami from a modified side control position and cranked Helio's arm until the shoulder broke. Helio refused to tap. His corner threw in the towel.

Why it mattered. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu community was so impressed by the technique's effectiveness that they renamed ude garami to "Kimura" — a tribute to the man who defeated their founder. It was the first technique in BJJ history to be named after a foreign opponent rather than a practitioner within the art.

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Where it sits in the taxonomy. In Fight Encyclopedia's 7-level classification, the Kimura lock is a Genus within the Shoulder Lock family:

Below this Genus sit multiple Species — Kimura from closed guard, Kimura from side control, Kimura from north-south, and others. The technique also appears in the Defence class as Whizzer to Kimura, and in the Sweep class as Kimura Grip Sweep. One technique, named after one fight, now spans three separate branches of the taxonomy.

The Ezekiel choke is a forearm choke that wraps one arm behind the opponent's head and drives the other forearm across the throat. The gi version uses the sleeve for leverage, but the no-gi version — using a fist or palm — is equally effective and increasingly common in MMA. In judo it is called sode guruma jime — "sleeve wheel constriction." Like the Kimura, the technique predates the name by decades.

What happened. In 1988, Brazilian judoka Ezequiel Paraguassu was preparing for the Seoul Olympics. To sharpen his ground game, he trained at the legendary Carlson Gracie Academy in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. Paraguassu was a judo specialist surrounded by BJJ black belts — and he kept submitting them with sode guruma jime from inside their closed guard.

This was extraordinary. The closed guard is considered the most defensive position in BJJ. Submitting someone from inside their guard was — and still is — rare. But Paraguassu's judo-trained precision with the sleeve choke made it work repeatedly against fighters who had never encountered it in that context.

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Why it mattered. The Carlson Gracie team started calling it estrangulamento de Ezequiel — the Ezequiel strangle. The name stuck. Today, "Ezekiel choke" is used worldwide. Paraguassu went on to compete at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, but his lasting legacy is a technique that crossed from judo to BJJ and never went back.

Where it sits in the taxonomy. The Ezekiel choke has one of the deepest paths in our entire system — reaching all the way to the Variety level, all seven:

Seven levels deep. A judo technique that crossed into BJJ in 1988 generated an entire subtree of variations — from mount, from guard, no-gi versions, each with its own finishing details. When a technique is this prolific, the taxonomy reveals the explosion of innovation it triggered.

The Twister is a spinal lock that rotates the spine laterally while controlling the legs and head. In American folkstyle wrestling it was called the guillotine — a pinning maneuver invented in the 1920s by Cornell NCAA champion Ralph Leander Lupton. Wrestlers used it to pin opponents from a riding position on the back. It was never intended as a submission.

What happened. Eddie Bravo learned the wrestling guillotine as a teenager on his high school wrestling team in Southern California. Years later, after watching Royce Gracie win an early UFC, he began training BJJ under Jean Jacques Machado. Around the time he earned his blue belt in the mid-1990s, Bravo started experimenting with the old wrestling pin — not to pin opponents, but to submit them. He modified the entry, the leg control, and the finishing mechanics to generate a spinal lock rather than a pin. He renamed it the Twister to avoid confusion with the guillotine choke, a completely different BJJ technique.

On May 3, 2003, at the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship qualifying rounds, Bravo — a relative unknown — submitted Royler Gracie with a triangle choke. The victory made him famous overnight. But it was the Twister that became his signature. Bravo went on to found the 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu system, built entirely around no-gi techniques including the Twister, the rubber guard, and the truck position.

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Why it mattered. The Twister was controversial. Many BJJ practitioners dismissed it as a "wrestling move" or a "neck crank" — not a legitimate submission. Bravo's 10th Planet system was seen as heretical. But the technique worked, and it spread. Today the Twister and its associated positions (Twister Side Control, the Truck) are taught across multiple grappling systems.

Where it sits in the taxonomy. The Twister is a Genus — but uniquely, it also spawned its own Position:

This is rare in our taxonomy. Most submissions exist in one branch. The Twister exists in two — because it created a control position that didn't exist before. The technique was so distinctive that it required a new positional category to describe where you need to be to apply it.

These three techniques named after fighters share a pattern that the taxonomy makes visible:

1. Every "named" technique existed before the person who named it. The Kimura was ude garami. The Ezekiel was sode guruma jime. The Twister was the wrestler's guillotine. No fighter invented their technique from nothing — they transported it from one context to another.

2. Techniques get named when they cross boundaries. Kimura brought judo to a BJJ challenge match. Paraguassu brought judo into a BJJ gym. Bravo brought wrestling into no-gi BJJ. Every naming event happened at a collision point between martial arts.

3. The more a named technique spreads, the deeper its taxonomy becomes. The Kimura spawned Species across multiple Classes. The Ezekiel reached the Variety level — seven levels deep. The Twister created a new Position branch. The taxonomy is a map of how innovation propagates through martial arts.

4. Named techniques reveal where the knowledge gaps were. Paraguassu's Ezekiel choke worked because BJJ fighters in 1988 had no experience defending a judo-specific sleeve choke from inside their own guard. Bravo's Twister worked because BJJ fighters had no framework for a spinal lock that came from a wrestling ride. The technique was not new — but the defenders' ignorance of it was. Every named technique marks a moment where one martial art exposed a blind spot in another.

5. Cross-training is the engine of technique evolution. All three stories share the same catalyst: a fighter who trained in more than one art. Kimura's judo met Gracie's BJJ. Paraguassu crossed from judo into BJJ daily training. Bravo carried wrestling mechanics into no-gi grappling. Today, cross-training is standard — most competitive fighters train in multiple disciplines. But in 1951, 1988, and even 2003, stepping into another art's territory was rare and often unwelcome. The techniques named after fighters are monuments to those who did it anyway.

These are just three of many techniques named after fighters in martial arts history. You can explore their full taxonomy paths, competition legality, and video demonstrations on their technique pages: Kimura Lock, Ezekiel Choke, and Twister.

Browse the full taxonomy at the A-Z techniques index, or explore by class: Submissions, Takedowns, Strikes, Throws.

Why is it called a Kimura? The Kimura lock is named after Masahiko Kimura, a Japanese judoka who used the technique (called ude garami in judo) to break Helio Gracie's arm in a 1951 challenge match in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu community renamed the technique in his honor.

Who invented the Ezekiel choke? The Ezekiel choke was not invented by Ezequiel Paraguassu — it existed in judo as sode guruma jime. Paraguassu, a Brazilian Olympic judoka, popularized it in BJJ by repeatedly submitting Carlson Gracie Academy students with it in 1988 while training for the Seoul Olympics.

What is the Twister in BJJ? The Twister is a spinal lock that rotates the opponent's spine laterally while controlling their legs and head. It was adapted from wrestling's guillotine by Eddie Bravo, who named it and incorporated it into his 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu system. Bravo gained fame in 2003 after submitting Royler Gracie at ADCC.

Did these fighters actually invent their techniques? No. All three techniques existed in other martial arts before they were renamed. The Kimura was judo's ude garami, the Ezekiel was judo's sode guruma jime, and the Twister was folkstyle wrestling's guillotine. The fighters proved the techniques worked in new contexts, which led to the renaming.

Why do techniques get renamed when they cross martial arts? When a technique moves from one art to another, the new community often doesn't use the original terminology. A judo technique entering BJJ gets a new name because BJJ practitioners aren't trained in Japanese judo vocabulary. The new name typically honors whoever demonstrated the technique's effectiveness in the new context.

Are there techniques named after fighters in other martial arts? Yes. The Sakuraba lock (a Kimura variation used by Kazushi Sakuraba against the Gracies), the Imanari Roll (a flying leg lock entry by Masakazu Imanari), and the Von Flue Choke (a counter to the guillotine by Jason Von Flue) are other examples. Most named techniques come from grappling arts where submissions have distinct mechanical identities.

How many techniques are in the Fight Encyclopedia taxonomy? Fight Encyclopedia currently catalogs over 1,900 techniques across 9 Classes in a 7-level taxonomy: Class, Group, Family, SubFamily, Genus, Species, and Variety. The Kimura, Ezekiel, and Twister are all at the Genus level, with Species and Variety variations below them.