If you watch MMA long enough, every fight, knockout, and submission begins to look familiar — which makes these classic bouts that much more special.

Wanderlei Silva Wins Via Choke
vs. Bob Schrijber @ Pride Grand Prix 2000 Opening Round, 1/30/00

Though he has two other submission victories on his record due to strikes, Wanderlei Silva has only ended one fight in his 15-year career with a legit, bonafide submission hold. It went down during his third PRIDE appearance against renowned kickboxer Bob Schrijber, in a reserve bout for the 2000 PRIDE GP. After some standup brawling, Wandy secures a takedown, immediately lands in mount, and slugs “Dirty Bob” until the Dutchman is forced to roll. From there, Silva sets up a rear-naked choke — you can tell that grappling’s not really his strong-suit — and eventually gets the tap.

Tito Ortiz Fights Outside of the UFC
vs. Jeremy Screeton @ West Coast NHB Championships 1, 12/8/98

After going 1-1 in his Octagon debut at UFC 13, Tito Ortiz took a tune-up fight at an NHB tournament in Los Angeles. The result was a fast, gnarly, PRIDE-style victory for the future superstar. Screeton shoots in on Ortiz, but the Huntington Beach Bad Boy uses his own formidable wrestling skills to reverse his opponent onto the mat. Two brutal knees to the head later, and Screeton was tapping out the morse code to “get me the fuck out of here.” Ortiz was invited back to the UFC the following month, and has never left. Seriously, we can’t get rid of this guy.

Some classic MMA goodness from the ’90s: First off is Andrei Arlovski’s unsuccessful pro MMA debut against Viacheslav Datsik (above), which went down in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the M-1 MFC World Championship on 4/9/1999; props to MMA Fight Girls for digging up the video. Fight starts at the 2:11 mark, and the Pitbull gets put to sleep about six minutes later. Arlovski would return to the cage a year later at the M-1 MFC European Championship, where he smoked Michael Tielrooy and Roman Zentsoz in a four-man bracket and caught the attention of the UFC.

Below is an absolutely insane video of Absolute Fighting Championship 1, a one-day, 32-man vale tudo tournament — yes, 32-man tournament — that took place in Moscow on 9/25/1995. Enormous future PRIDE fighter Ricardo “The Mutant” Morais made his MMA debut that day, stopping four opponents via strikes (all in less than two minutes apiece), before choking out Mikhail Illoukhine in the final. I guarantee it’ll be the most hardcore thing you see all week.