Does Sambo suck? An answer to Chael Sonnen

In today’s video I’ll be addressing what Chael Sonnen said about Sambo, and he said that Sambo sucks. So, does Sambo suck, really? Well first of all I love Chael Sonnen’s channel and he has a ton great content which I suggest you check out but, I don’t really agree with the with him on this one. And second of all I am not even sure that he means what he says because he used to say a lot of crazy things when he competed in order to sell his fights, so I’m not sure if he’s doing the same thing right now in order to get views on his channel. Either way, it was fun watching him and listening to him.

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So, does Sambo really suck?

The short answer is – no it does not suck.

I do think that wrestling especially freestyle wrestling and folkstyle wrestling is better for a MMA than Judo or Sambo. And why am I mentioning Judo here? I’m mentioning it because Judo and Sambo are very similar. He also mentioned that there are not a lot of Sambo players in the UFC and I will address that later. I will first address why I don’t think Sambo sucks what is Sambo’s influence in MMA.

The best fighter of all times Fedor Emelianenko was a Sambo player and a Judo player as well. Judo and Sambo are wrestling – jacket wrestling. You can call it Sambo or Judo but in its essence it’s wrestling. Its wrestling with the jacket.

There are significant differences with when you wrestle with the gi and without the gi but also there is a lot of overlap. A lot of techniques exist both in wrestling and in Judo and Sambo – the same techniques. Like uchi mata, foot sweeps, suplexes and so on.. So it’s a type of wrestling and you cannot really deny the effectiveness of it.

In the street, and I know we’re not talking about the street, we’re talking about MMA, but still in the streets I think it’s even more applicable because there you’re not walking half naked, you’re walking with your clothes on.

Sambo’s influence in MMA

As far as MMA is concerned, Sambo has had an influence in MMA, especially with leglocks and armbars.

Armbars you say? What do you mean? Don’t they come from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

Yes and no. Let me explain.

The armbar

One of the best exponents of the armbar ever was Ronda Rousey. And you might say what you will about Ronda Rousey – she’s washed out, she will never fight again, and what not but there’s no denying to me that she has one of the best if not the best armbar in all of MMA including men, and I’m not the first one to say that. She learnt the armbar from her mother, and the armbar made its way to Judo by way of Sambo.

What do I mean?

Armbars existed in Judo even before Sambo. But it was the Sambo players that came into Judo that really made them effective and made them popular in Judo.

In the 60s when Judo became an Olympic sport, Soviet Union started paying more attention to it, and Sambo players started competing in Judo because Sambo and Judo are very similar.

They brought their own techniques, their own ways to set up the armbar and they started armbaring almost everybody. A British world champion from 1981. – Neil Adams, was one of the best Judokas ever to do an armbar, and he learnt it from a Soviet competitor Alexander Yastkevich. So this is how the straight armbar (juji gatame) made it’s way to Judo. Even though it existed in Judo, Sambo players made it more effective and they had setups that were better.

And from then on, many Judo players caught on and started doing the same setups, the same armbar. The one setup that Eddie Bravo calls “the swim move” came from Judo (“The Yastkevich turn”) and before that it came from Sambo.

So some of the ways to set up the armbar came from Sambo.

And you should know that Sambo is a hybrid art that consists of many different wrestling local wrestling styles in the Soviet Union but also from Judo.

One of its founders, Vasili Oshchepkov, was a judo black belt in was living in Japan and training in Kodokan. Even though they say that the influence for Sambo were many local styles, I think the biggest influence was Judo.

Leglocks

Another thing that Sambo brought to MMA were leg locks. To be more precise, Sambo the art that is probably most responsible for bringing leg locks to MMA and BJJ, but that is not 100% certain. At least I don’t know because catch wrestling might be another source of leglocks. What I do know is that Judo did have led locks in its system, but they were banned at some point, and Sambo probably took leg locks from Judo and refined.

Are Sambo players the best leg lockers today? No, I don’t thinks so. I think BJJers are, and most specifically the guys that train with John Danaher, and few others as well (like Dean Lister and Craig Jones). They made leglocks better. They took what’s good in Sambo and made it better because BJJ is an open source system, just like MMA is. They take some techniques from other arts and they make it better because they’re not so constrained by the rule sets.

In Judo, Sambo and wrestling you have specific rule sets that only favour certain techniques, and competitors get really good at those techniques. But BJJ has the most relaxed rule set of all grappling sports. Also MMA has the least amount of rules. Which makes both sports a fertile ground for adoption of techniques from other styles.

So that’s another influence (to MMA) from Sambo.

Cheal Sonnen sometimes criticises sports like kickboxing for not being really serious sports because they are not in the Olympics. And I can somewhat agree with that because the countries spend more money for Olympic sports, the Olympic program is more serious compared to the program for non-Olympic sports. But I generally disagree and kickboxing is a really good sport which also very applicable to MMA.

Sambo might not be in the Olympics like wrestling and judo are, but it’s still practiced by many countries. Just take former Soviet Union for example. A vast number of people in a large country like that practiced Sambo. Today Sambo has grown even more.

And of course we have Combat Sambo, which is kind of like MMA only with a gi. The rules are a little bit different and it’s a very useful sport.

Combat Sambo

Chael Sonnen also mentioned that just because the Russian army practices Combat Sambo, it doesn’t mean it’s a good art. Of course there are armies that are practicing very bad martial arts. For example in my home country of Serbia we have something called “real aikido” that is practiced in the army. It’s a totally nonsense art and if you’ve watched some of my previous videos, you know my position on aikido. So that can be the case in some countries, but in Sambo’s case – it’s a very useful art, both Combat Sambo and the regular Sambo.

So the point is that I don’t agree with Chael and I think that Sambo is a very good martial art.

Why aren’t there more Sambo players in the UFC

As far as why Sambo players are not more prominent in the UFC, there may be many reasons. I cannot answer this question for sure. But a lot of wrestlers come to the UFC because the UFC originated in America and most of the events are organized there. Wrestling in really big in the US and it’s like a natural progression for wrestlers after college or after they finish their wrestling career to give MMA a try.

Russia is far away and some Russians have gotten into the UFC but it’s not so easy to get into the UFC if you’re not from the US or Brazil.

I will repeat it again – I think wrestling is better for MMA than Judo or Sambo because Judo and Sambo players have to learn how to adapt their throws for the no gi environment, while wrestlers already know that. So in that regard wrestling has an upper hand.

Here is a fun fact – did you know that wrestlers, Judo players and Sambo players train together from time to time in Russia? They of course train with their own clubs and their own sport, but from time to time they gather and for example all go to Judo training. Next time they train wrestling or Sambo. So they have a well rounded grappling experience there.

Is Chael Sonnen right, what do you think? Does Sambo suck or not? Let me know in the youtube comments or bellow.