Lyle Beerbohm learned the hard way why you don’t let Shinya Aoki get a hold on you during an MMA fight. While he certainly had an advantage in the fight trunks department (not always a certainty when your opponent practically invented fancy pants), he was nowhere near the same level as Aoki once the fight went to the ground and was submitted just over a minute and a half into their fight.

Things quickly went wrong when Beerbohm pushed Aoki up against the cage in the opening seconds of the fight. Aoki tripped him, got on top, and climbed on his back the second it was available. Faster than you can say ‘Hello Japan’, Aoki locked up a nasty looking neck crank and squeezed until Beerbohm was forced to tap.

I almost feel bad for hoping Beerbohm would keep to his word and grapple with Aoki. In hindsight the result was painfully obvious but leading up to the fight many were jonesing at least for a round or two of back and forth jiu jitsu action. Instead, Lyle became the 14th person subbed out in less than two and a half minutes by the Tobikan Judan.

As for Aoki, he gets to remind people why he’s hot shit after a week where many were expecting him to struggle against another American fighter. Even Scott Coker was talking about releasing him if he lost. Now everyone is excited once more to see how he does against Strikeforce and even UFC lightweights. He just has to hope some of them are as foolish as Lyle Beerbohm was last night.