Sherdog’s Top 10: Deceptively Dangerous

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2. Shinya Aoki

Tennis bad boy Andre Agassi used to pitch cameras with the catchy, dual-purpose line, “Image is everything.” In mixed martial arts, having just the right look can add extra zeros to one’s bank account. No one exemplifies cultivating a badass persona like “Kimbo Slice,” who, with some clever marketing assistance, managed to dupe a decent amount of curious fight fans into believing he was one of the world’s best fighters. Thanks in no small part to Seth Petruzelli, that myth has long since been debunked.

The antithesis of this ideal is Aoki, Dream and Shooto champion and submission specialist extraordinaire. Of course, by the time you stop looking at his Skittles-themed pants and realize that the Japanese standout’s rubber guard is one of the most dangerous weapons in the sport, he has likely already elicited a tapout from yet another unsuspecting opponent.

The notorious rainbow paints are only the beginning. It would be difficult to guess that the Tokyo native, slender, unassuming and armed with less-than-marginal striking ability, is one of the world’s top lightweights. Aoki’s eyesight nearly kept him from competing in Shooto, but he chose to undergo LASIK surgery so he could remain with the promotion, hardly the type of story to strike fear in prospective opponents.

At no time in his MMA career did he appear less threatening than during an open workout with Masakazu Imanari at Deep Official Gym Impact on March 2, 2009. There, Aoki dressed up in a schoolgirl outfit, while Imanari was presumably his gym teacher. Can you imagine “Kimbo Slice” pulling that off? Not likely, but the YouTube sensation has never finished someone with a mounted gogoplata, either.

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