Former heavyweight champ Mir shocked a good part of the MMA world by submitting Minotauro in Toronto. Photo: UFC.

Sure, it is the one freshest in everyone’s memory. In its favor, though, it was the year’s most devastating, the one witnessed by the most people, and the most unexpected.

Readers know their stuff, and from the heaps of locks, chokes and twists that surfaced over the past year, the Kimura arm lock Frank Mir used to tap out the previously untapoutable Rodrigo Minotauro that December 10 was the one they picked.

“It has to be Mir’s submission. The transition he used in getting to side-control was surprising, especially for a heavyweight. And then the kimura… it was devastating,” was the synthesis of why the hold deserved top spot, submitted by a reader signing by the name Fatjitsu.

Besides the American Mir, a South Korean and a Brazilian from the state of Amazonas had their fair share of votes from readers here on the site, not to mention on Twitter and Facebook. The popular vote pointed to the twister Jung Chan-Sung, the “Korean Zombi”, used to great effect on Leonard Garcia last March and Diego Brandão’s Hail Mary armbar on Dennis Bermudez in the grand finale of TUF reality show season 14 on the 4th of last month.

(Learn the ins and outs of the twister in the following video.)