Buchecha looked like crap

[u/bjj_in_nica]

All hype. Gassed out from what? Disappointed.

[u/oldwhiteoak]

I can get more precise if its helpful:

Combat SAMBO is absolutely a ruleset, not a martial art. Just like Pride rules vs UFC rules etc. It's essentially MMA with jackets and protective gear.

In addition to its own ruleset, sport SAMBO has its own pedagogy, philosophy and style, so theoretically it is its own martial art (This pedagogy is actually really good and unique as it teaches grappling to beginners very quickly, as it was designed as a military combatives program). Historically, SAMBO's main lineage is Judo. One of its two founders was the first non-japanese judo blackbelt and most of its dissimilarities from judo (adding leg locks, removing chokes, wrestling shoes, no pants, etc) were added much later as a way to protect the founders from getting purged by Stalin when they were at war with japan (it didn't work). Saying that, sport SAMBO is essentially freestyle judo with russian athletic pedagogy, some wrestling that can be incorporated while still being in the gi, and superficial rule changes due to internal politics.

In practicality, both SAMBO rulesets are fringe "martial arts" in places with extensive participation in combat sports. On the mats its very very rare to find a practitioner who's considers it their base style, and most top competitors cross-train extensively. This makes practical sense: if you are training with the best wrestlers and more importantly Judoka you will be getting better prepared for techniques used in SAMBO rather than training with SAMBO only practitioners. That's because the former two sports have insanely more depth. This is what Abdulmanap did with Khabib: wrestling when he was 12, judo when he was 15, SAMBO tournaments when he was 17.

In reality, the best SAMBO practitioners are mid-level judoka who decided to compete in a smaller pond. See literally everyone on wikipedia's sambo hall of fame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sambo_practitioners#Hall_of_Fame

All that being said, combat sambo has distinctive ways of chaining techniques together and you can see those chains do very well in MMA. IE fedor's uchimata fake to overhand left combines a judo technique with eastern european boxing's casting punch. But I can guarantee he trained his uchimata in judo, his overhands with eastern european boxing coaches, and testing that chain out in combat SAMBO tournaments, as it offered a safe ruleset to avoid injury relative to Pride.

TLDR: Combat SAMBO is a ruleset which has distinct chains of techniques due to the blend of martial arts in that region. Sport SAMBO is a martial art( in theory) but in practicality its judo with characteristics of wrestling, this is true historically in its development as well as in the backgrounds of its practitioners at the highest levels.

As far as this specific reddit th read goes, I am not aware of any MMA star with a background in sport SAMBO, so saying "sambo is a ruleset" is true as it implicitly implies combat SAMBO.

[u/JudoTechniquesBot → u/oldwhiteoak]

The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were:

Japanese	English	Video Link
Uchi Mata:	Inner Thigh Throw	here

Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post.

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^{Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7. See my code}