Strike, Throw, Submit

Pinned and bleeding, Eren's mind drifts to his trainee days and a sparring session where Annie handled him effortlessly. A feinted hook, a switch of arms, and he was on the ground in an arm triangle, tapping out while she casually held the choke. That memory ends with Mikasa stepping in to challenge Annie herself, both women squaring off as Annie muses whether her technique can handle a beast.

Back in the present, Eren rises and refuses the calls from Armin and the Survey Corps to withdraw to the Wall. When Reiner answers his straight punch with a cross, Eren slips underneath it and dumps the Armored Titan onto the ground with the very arm triangle Annie taught him, stunning the onlookers. From there the fight becomes a grappling clinic. Reiner escapes the mount and slams him down, only for Eren to wrap his legs into a triangle choke, then flow into an armbar that tears the Armored Titan's right arm clean off.

Eren finally begins moving toward the Wall, and Reiner gambles: he sheds the armor plating behind his knees, trading protection for speed, and drives Eren into the Wall with a tackle hard enough to crack it. Eren trips him before the follow-up punch can land. Watching the exchange, Hange deciphers the design flaw: like a suit of medieval plate, the Armored Titan cannot harden the backs of its joints. Armed with that insight, Mikasa slashes through Reiner's legs during his next tackle while Eren locks his head in a guillotine hold. As the armor around his trapped neck starts to fail and Eren works to rip out his nape, Reiner drags himself toward the Wall on his one remaining arm and unleashes an enormous cry. Armin looks up and understands too late what it summoned: the Colossus Titan's sixty-meter body is already plummeting toward Eren and Reiner both.

A flashback shows Annie teaching Eren grappling techniques during training, and Mikasa challenging her to a match.

Eren turns the fight by applying Annie's submissions, throwing the Armored Titan with an arm triangle and ripping off his arm with an armbar.

Reiner sacrifices the armor behind his knees to gain mobility and smashes Eren against the Wall.

Hange identifies the Armored Titan's unprotected joint backs as its structural weakness, letting Mikasa cripple Reiner's legs.

Caught in Eren's guillotine hold with his nape exposed, Reiner roars for help, and Bertolt drops the Colossus Titan's body onto them from atop the Wall.

Strike, Throw, Submit is the second chapter of volume 11 and the 44th overall, released in Japan on April 9, 2013 and in English on January 28, 2014. Part of the Clash of the Titans arc, it was adapted as the anime episode Close Combat.

The chapter title references the three pillars of Eren's newfound fighting approach, striking, throwing, and submission holds, and retroactively gives weight to Annie's training scenes from the early volumes. It follows The Armored Titan and leads into The Hunters.