Sambo is a martial art developed by the Soviet Union in the 20s to train their army personal to keep fighting during a closed distance combat situation, or in an unarmed confrontation with their enemies. As it is less known to the world as compared to Boxing, Karate, or Brazilian Jiu-jitsu;
is Sambo a good martial art? Yes, Sambo is an effective fighting style, and it is mainly due to the purpose for which it was created; that is, guaranteeing an advantage in hand-to-hand combat during war.
The next question arises, How? So let us have a detailed discussion in this regard, and I tell more detail about this fighting style to show you how Sambo is good martial art.
Reason 1 : Sambo was developed for war.
Since Sambo was developed for a battle environment in mind where there is not a friendly bout or a street fight with bullies, In street fights or during a bully attack, the purpose is not to kill someone, but it is sometimes a robbery attempt or bullies trying to torture someone mentally and physically.
But for sure, the intention of those attacks are usually not to kill someone. Now, see the other side of the picture.
Sambo is developed for war purposes, not for a street fight or a professional career in touch sports.
The reality is the base of Sambo touches with a war scene to use hands and legs as weapons when a soldier is unarmed and where shooting and killing an opponent is something normal.
So this shows, Sambo is a really good martial art in case of self-defense where the offense is also needed.
Reason 2 : Sambo took inspiration from other martial arts.
Since it is one of the newest among the fighting techniques, Sambo is designed by cherry-picking the best shots and strikes from the different fighting styles that were evolved from the ages.
For example, parental sports of Sambo are Judo, Jujutsu, and wrestling.
Jujutsu is more than 2000 years old ( as you can see on the article where we spoke about the mma history), and it has been improving and enhancing with the time, so a relatively new Sambo took some promising moves from it, merged them with wrestling, and mixed some lethal shots from Judo.
Hence a modern fighting style was “assembled” to cope with the requirements of the modern age.
Reason 3: It is about the real-life challenges
Taking Sambo to the Olympics or the World Game was not an intention while developing it. Being purely made for the Russian army, and it was not about the attack and defense only, but dealing with different weather and conditions and surviving in extreme conditions during a war was also a part of the training.
That is why it is a more real-time and actual street fighting and warfighting technique. So it not only improves the attack and defense, but also the chin; the ability to absorb the punishment from the assailants.
Reason 4 : The other fights teach legal strikes.
While the other fighting techniques teach how to throw and get a legal strike to avoid disqualification and point deduction.
But, whenever there is a street fight or robbery attempt, none is there to set the rules before it happens, and none is obliged to follow any rules of legal or illegal strikes.
And the same thing happens during a war, and that’s what a Sambo fighter is trained for; how to hit legal and illegal strikes and how to avoid or receive those shots.
What are the lethal strikes and techniques which make Sambo a good Martial art?
To get the answer, we need to go a little deeper into the fighting styles offered by Sambo.
There are two fighting styles or versions of Sambo.
We can say there is a lighter one and a harder variant.
The lighter one is called Sport Sambo, while the tough one is named Combat Sambo.
Let’s have a look to see the differences.
Combat Sambo : The Tough and real version
Combat Sambo comes with the tough disciplines like landing shots at the groin – which is illegal in other disciplines, named as below the belt attack-, choking the opponents to disconnect the blood or air supply to make them unconscious to win a bout or to proceed during a war.
It also allows head butting- Hitting the opponent’s soft body part with the hard part of the skull; for example, hitting with head to the nose or the eye socket of the opponent – which is rarely allowed in the other combat sports.
Sport Sambo : The Soft and the restricted version
This is the softer version that can be declared as the exhibition or demonstration of Sambo. Here in Sport Sambo, choking is not allowed along with all the other illegal strikes.
It allows leg locks and holding. In fact, Sport Sambo is just like amateur wrestling that comes with a lot of restrictions.
Let me clear the new questions popping up from your mind:
“I understand Sambo is a good fighting style and it is really effective to deal with the different situation regarding self defense and attack, but is the Sport Sambo version is also effective?
The answer is a NO.
As we have read that the Sport Sambo comes with a lot of restrictions along with rules and regulations, it is not a good choice for self-defense or other purposes like this.
Sport Sambo is only good to demonstrate a fighting simulation or other friendly activities, But, the real purpose of any martial art is to master the techniques of self defense, which Sport Sambo lacks a lot and does not resonate with the demands of a real street fight or other situations where one needs to defend oneself.
Only the Combat Sambo meets with all the criteria one can face during a real fight or bullying attack.
The Final Verdict : Khabib the Sambo fighter.
Khabib is the best fighter UFC or MMA ever witnessed. He became number one in the pound for pound list right after winning the final bout of his career.
During his professional career, he was just untouchable, and he defeated 29 fighters in this journey without losing a single bout. The unstoppable and the best fighter on the earth, Khabib The Eagle, is a Sambo fighter.
Have a look at his fight with Conor McGregor.
First round
In the first round, Khabib showed defensive techniques and won the round by avoiding the power shots from the challenger.
Second round
In the second round, he chose to trade strikes with Conor in the center of the ring, and Khabib dropped the Irishman with a single right hand to the jaw and then gave him the most severe beating of his career.
Third round
In the third round, Khabib showed a mixed art of grappling and fighting and outperformed the Notorious.
Fourth round
In the fourth round, Khabib forced Conor to give up with a Neck Crank before beating him with some great shots.
This summary of four rounds of the fight showed how Khabib demonstrated different fighting styles in a single bout.
And he defeated Conor in every fighting department; whether it was power, grappling, takedowns, knockdown, reflexes, ring cutting, or simple jabbing, Khabib just outsmarted the trash talker with different fighting disciplines in a single bout.
This was the summary of a single fight, let alone the 28 other competitions where Khabib implemented the Sambo techniques to win by KO or unanimous decisions.
CONLCUSION
As we saw during the article, the practice of sambo as martial art can be a great choose, and much more if you are going to learn Combat Sambo.
In the world of the mma one good example of the use of Sambo is made by Khabib where he show the efficiency and the power of this martial art.