SAMBO gets provisional Olympic recognition!

[Kbits]

No competitions of women or veteran/ youth Combat Sambo.
Headbutts and blood are a big NO for the Olympics.

Oh. Politics and appearances. :/

How big are the World Combat Games for sambists? Are they seen as high level competition or just so so?

 

[Ivaylo Ivanov]

How big are the World Combat Games for sambists? Are they seen as high level competition or just so so?

No.
They dont bring competitions points, hence no change in ranking or benefits from medals.
They are not on the FIAS competition calendar:
https://sambo-fias.org/en/events/

 

[JustOnce]

In my non-expert opinion Id say Fedor. He has more medals than Khabib and competed in it longer. Fedor also won most of his medals in FIAS which as far as I know is the biggest governing body for sambo with the most infrastructure and widest participation from athletes on a global scale. Khabib never won any medals and may have never competed in FIAS. Khabib won his world championships in WCSF (World Combat Sambo Federation) which I believe is smaller and primarily a Russian federation for the most part. Fedor also competed in and won medals in WCSF but not as much as in FIAS.

This is actually probably a good question for @Ivaylo Ivanov to weigh in on. Not so much the Fedor vs Khabib debate but the differences in the 2 governing bodies for sambo.

You pretty much answered it

.

Thing is, before Khabib showed up and some other guys, on Sherdog, Combat sambo wasn't all that highly regarded as you guys must know. I mean, it looked like guys were quitting before facing Fedor, or getting finished under a minute.

But, if you look at Khabib's fights, I mean, it looks like the competition might have been better. Outside Ivanov, I mean Blagoi, Fedor looked like he just wiped the floor with everyone, but it doesn't look like that was the case with Khabib.

But, Fedor faced better competitions? I'm lil confused. Also, with all due respect, Krill is multiple times world champion, and you know how he faired in MMA, so I guess the competition level in combat sambo always has been something of mystery to me, and it hasn't always been regarded always that highly to say the least on Sherdog, I mean, like I said, it looked like guys were quitting or just not showing up to face Fedor.

 

[Ivaylo Ivanov]

.

Thing is, before Khabib showed up and some other guys, on Sherdog, Combat sambo wasn't all that highly regarded as you guys must know. I mean, it looked like guys were quitting before facing Fedor, or getting finished under a minute.

But, if you look at Khabib's fights, I mean, it looks like the competition might have been better. Outside Ivanov, I mean Blagoi, Fedor looked like he just wiped the floor with everyone, but it doesn't look like that was the case with Khabib.

But, Fedor faced better competitions? I'm lil confused. Also, with all due respect, Krill is multiple times world champion, and you know how he faired in MMA, so I guess the competition level in combat sambo always has been something of mystery to me, and it hasn't always been regarded always that highly to say the least on Sherdog, I mean, like I said, it looked like guys were quitting or just not showing up to face Fedor.

If you follow closer the last few posts, you will understand.

Fedor was fighting in the FIAS (the only international SAMBO federation) world championships, where competition was top of the SAMBO world.

Khabib never fought in FIAS world championship.
Instead, he fought in a lot smaller organization.

Fedor is a lot more recognized for his success in SAMBO, even if he is not the most dominant Combat Sambo champ (there are people with better competition results, who never fought in big MMA orgs, or MMA at all).

Khabib is recognized for repping the sport at the top MMA org in the world.

As for Sherdog, the F12 forum has never been big on anything else, but BJJ.
Believe it or not, there use to be a few quite accomplished SAMBO people here (internationally) before and they left without a single post.

I rarely post here myself...

 

[JustOnce]

If you follow closer the last few posts, you will understand.

Fedor was fighting in the FIAS (the only international SAMBO federation) world championships, where competition was top of the SAMBO world.

Khabib never fought in FIAS world championship.
Instead, he fought in a lot smaller organization.

Fedor is a lot more recognized for his success in SAMBO, even if he is not the most dominant Combat Sambo champ (there are people with better competition results, who never fought in big MMA orgs, or MMA at all).

Khabib is recognized for repping the sport at the top MMA org in the world.

As for Sherdog, the F12 forum has never been big on anything else, but BJJ.
Believe it or not, there use to be a few quite accomplished SAMBO people here (internationally) before and they left without a single post.

I rarely post here myself...

Oh I understood that part, but what I was saying was, if that was true, i found it strange how it looked like Fedor was literally making the competition look terrible, almost making it look like people were quitting so they won't face him, on the other hand, Khabib is supposedly facing inferior competition, but it looked like he was facing more tougher competition, like in youtube videos that are available, I guess, since there aren't that many available, like compared to BJJ or freestyle wrestling match videos.

 

[JustOnce]

If you follow closer the last few posts, you will understand.

Fedor was fighting in the FIAS (the only international SAMBO federation) world championships, where competition was top of the SAMBO world.

Khabib never fought in FIAS world championship.
Instead, he fought in a lot smaller organization.

Fedor is a lot more recognized for his success in SAMBO, even if he is not the most dominant Combat Sambo champ (there are people with better competition results, who never fought in big MMA orgs, or MMA at all).

Khabib is recognized for repping the sport at the top MMA org in the world.

As for Sherdog, the F12 forum has never been big on anything else, but BJJ.
Believe it or not, there use to be a few quite accomplished SAMBO people here (internationally) before and they left without a single post.

I rarely post here myself...

And who would you say best represented Sambo in MMA?

Oleg from older days
Fedor from PRIDE days
Khabib from UFC days
Minakov from Bellator

Doesn't Sports Sambo champion have higher prestige than Combat Sambo? It looked like Minakov accomplished similar amount in Sports Sambo as Fedor did in Combat Sambo.

Also, do you know anything about Fedor's Judo days and how good he was? I don't think there was any Russian Sambist, in Sports Sambo or Combat Sambo, who has done as well as Fedor did in Judo, though lots of people on here says that Judo and Sambo are interchangeable in Russia.

 

[Ivaylo Ivanov]

And who would you say best represented Sambo in MMA?

Oleg from older days
Fedor from PRIDE days
Khabib from UFC days
Minakov from Bellator

Doesn't Sports Sambo champion have higher prestige than Combat Sambo? It looked like Minakov accomplished similar amount in Sports Sambo as Fedor did in Combat Sambo.

Also, do you know anything about Fedor's Judo days and how good he was? I don't think there was any Russian Sambist, in Sports Sambo or Combat Sambo, who has done as well as Fedor did in Judo, though lots of people on here says that Judo and Sambo are interchangeable in Russia.

All of them did great job, promoting SAMBO in MMA.

There are guys, like Tigran Kirakosyan, Marko Kosev and may others, who have won the Worlds more times than Fedor.

Yes, there are plenty of double champs in SAMBO and Judo, one of them is Bulgarian with the same name as me, who currently is still very active. He also is Sumo Euro champ
Another Bulgarian I spoke about here, Daniel Dichev also has international titles from both sports.
My friend, Kamen Georgiev (also Bulgarian) is Combat Sambo world champ and several times Judo national champ, not sure about his international Judo competitions, but I believe he won Balkan Games.
From the Russians, there are even more- Ali Kurjev comes to mind...
Mongolian Judo Olympians and medalists have doubled in SAMBO worlds as well.
In general, that was all information you could gather by just reading what was posted up to this point.

 

[JustOnce]

All of them did great job, promoting SAMBO in MMA.

There are guys, like Tigran Kirakosyan, Marko Kosev and may others, who have won the Worlds more times than Fedor.

Yes, there are plenty of double champs in SAMBO and Judo, one of them is Bulgarian with the same name as me, who currently is still very active. He also is Sumo Euro champ
Another Bulgarian I spoke about here, Daniel Dichev also has international titles from both sports.
My friend, Kamen Georgiev (also Bulgarian) is Combat Sambo world champ and several times Judo national champ, not sure about his international Judo competitions, but I believe he won Balkan Games.
From the Russians, there are even more- Ali Kurjev comes to mind...
Mongolian Judo Olympians and medalists have doubled in SAMBO worlds as well.
In general, that was all information you could gather by just reading what was posted up to this point.

It's much appreciated! It's pretty cool, I haven't really heard of those guys before elsewhere. The very first guy that you mentioned doesn't even come up when I googled him, and some doesn't have their own wiki pages.

I have always been a big fan of Fedor for a long time, and in turn Sambo, but compared to BJJ or wrestling, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of guys who practice or know about Sambo, and it's really cool to finally find someone like yourself.

When it comes to Fedor though, since Fedor was the third behind Tamerlov and Mikhaylin(sp?), the multiple time world champs and olympic medalists, wouldn't Fedor technically be the best Russian ever to have competed at Judo and Combat Sambo? Even better than Ali Kurzhev that you mentioned?

 

[dsdoubled]

.

Thing is, before Khabib showed up and some other guys, on Sherdog, Combat sambo wasn't all that highly regarded as you guys must know. I mean, it looked like guys were quitting before facing Fedor, or getting finished under a minute.

But, if you look at Khabib's fights, I mean, it looks like the competition might have been better. Outside Ivanov, I mean Blagoi, Fedor looked like he just wiped the floor with everyone, but it doesn't look like that was the case with Khabib.

But, Fedor faced better competitions? I'm lil confused. Also, with all due respect, Krill is multiple times world champion, and you know how he faired in MMA, so I guess the competition level in combat sambo always has been something of mystery to me, and it hasn't always been regarded always that highly to say the least on Sherdog, I mean, like I said, it looked like guys were quitting or just not showing up to face Fedor.

Well, I didn't say that Fedor faced better competition than Khabib in sambo. I said Fedor competed in the much more prestigious "league". It could be true that Khabib happened to fight a higher relative caliber of opponent despite being in a less prestigious league, or it could just appear that way. Maybe itd be a worthwhile exercise to watch matches between various guys that competed against Fedor and see how they looked against each other. There are other possible explanations too.

-Fedor was either done with sambo or wrapping up his sambo career just as Khabib's sambo career was hitting its peak. There may have been a 1-2 year gap between each guy's respective prime in sambo. Given the explosion of martial arts in that time period its reasonable to expect the overall level of competition to increase greatly across the board, in all arts, on all platforms.

-HW have always appeared to be of a lesser caliber when it comes to combat sports. They are usually much less athletic, slower, etc. Watching a high level HW match in most combat sports is almost like watching a different sport when compared to their lighter weight counterparts. HWs tend to favor different techniques and high level application of said techniques is considerably different as far as aesthetics go. Historically, I would even go so far as to say HW has been more likely to see a dominant #1 emerge from the pack as well. And honestly, the fact that Khabib had more competitive matches seems like it could support the possibility of Fedor being the more highly regarded sambist.

There are many things to consider. And if you are going to point to Kiril and Khabib's MMA exploits in the context of this discussion you have to also acknowledge that the performance of either guy in MMA is not solely a result of their sambo skills. Khabib has insanely high wrestling skills to go with his sambo and has trained all over the world from Dagestan to Ukraine to New Jersey (K Dojo) to AKA.

 

[dsdoubled]

When it comes to Fedor though, since Fedor was the third behind Tamerlov and Mikhaylin(sp?), the multiple time world champs and olympic medalists, wouldn't Fedor technically be the best Russian ever to have competed at Judo and Combat Sambo? Even better than Ali Kurzhev that you mentioned?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_Mudranov

Russian who scored a silver at sambo worlds only to go on to win the Olympics in Rio.

 

[JustOnce]

Well, I didn't say that Fedor faced better competition than Khabib in sambo. I said Fedor competed in the much more prestigious "league". It could be true that Khabib happened to fight a higher relative caliber of opponent despite being in a less prestigious league, or it could just appear that way. Maybe itd be a worthwhile exercise to watch matches between various guys that competed against Fedor and see how they looked against each other. There are other possible explanations too.

-Fedor was either done with sambo or wrapping up his sambo career just as Khabib's sambo career was hitting its peak. There may have been a 1-2 year gap between each guy's respective prime in sambo. Given the explosion of martial arts in that time period its reasonable to expect the overall level of competition to increase greatly across the board, in all arts, on all platforms.

-HW have always appeared to be of a lesser caliber when it comes to combat sports. They are usually much less athletic, slower, etc. Watching a high level HW match in most combat sports is almost like watching a different sport when compared to their lighter weight counterparts. HWs tend to favor different techniques and high level application of said techniques is considerably different as far as aesthetics go. Historically, I would even go so far as to say HW has been more likely to see a dominant #1 emerge from the pack as well. And honestly, the fact that Khabib had more competitive matches seems like it could support the possibility of Fedor being the more highly regarded sambist.

There are many things to consider. And if you are going to point to Kiril and Khabib's MMA exploits in the context of this discussion you have to also acknowledge that the performance of either guy in MMA is not solely a result of their sambo skills. Khabib has insanely high wrestling skills to go with his sambo and has trained all over the world from Dagestan to Ukraine to New Jersey (K Dojo) to AKA.

True. I don't know, just little strange that's all. More prestigious competition apparently, but when Fedor was competitng, people thought he was fighting scrubs on here. And Khabib well, I think it was more competitive anyways...but maybe that's what it is.

 

[JustOnce]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_Mudranov

Russian who scored a silver at sambo worlds only to go on to win the Olympics in Rio.

Nice find. I think when I looked up russians who competed in sambo for Russia and Judo, a few years ago, this guy might not have had wikipedia page up :/. Interesting though, would be neat to see this guy in MMA. Would be really neat. Love to see.

 

[dsdoubled]

True. I don't know, just little strange that's all. More prestigious competition apparently, but when Fedor was competitng, people thought he was fighting scrubs on here. And Khabib well, I think it was more competitive anyways...but maybe that's what it is.

When you say
"but when Fedor was competitng, people thought he was fighting scrubs on here"
Do you mean that when Fedor was doing sambo people on sherdog thought he was fighting scrubs in sambo? Because I don't recall that at all. If anything sambo had more mystique back then and Fedor being beloved as he was, people always thought highly of him, his sambo exploits, and sambo in general. But I may be thinking of a different time here on Sherdog and obviously its possible you viewed different threads than I. Sambo always had a kind of "street cred" if you will, in MMA. It was practiced by guys who were very good fighters in a land far away. You know how that goes. Guys like Amar Suloev, Andrei Semenov, Ansar Chalangov, and others were flying the sambo flag in MMA almost as long as Fedor and they all were amongst the highest level MMA fighters around.

 

[JustOnce]

When you say
"but when Fedor was competitng, people thought he was fighting scrubs on here"
Do you mean that when Fedor was doing sambo people on sherdog thought he was fighting scrubs in sambo? Because I don't recall that at all. If anything sambo had more mystique back then and Fedor being beloved as he was, people always thought highly of him, his sambo exploits, and sambo in general. But I may be thinking of a different time here on Sherdog and obviously its possible you viewed different threads than I. Sambo always had a kind of "street cred" if you will, in MMA. It was practiced by guys who were very good fighters in a land far away. You know how that goes. Guys like Amar Suloev, Andrei Semenov, Ansar Chalangov, and others were flying the sambo flag in MMA almost as long as Fedor and they all were amongst the highest level MMA fighters around.

Well, it's probably not a good thing, but I spent way too much time on here, so when some people agree to disagree, not about any martial arts or what happened on Sherdog forum, I tend to be rather confident on my own recollection of the event, but there are also times that I find out things differently than I thought, so I can't say, but my impression was yeah, people thought he was fighting scrubs, and that's why it was a huge shock when he got upset by chubby Bulgarian. To be fair, though I am not an expert in Sambo, but by BJJ MMA wrestling standards, it looked like Ivanov was stalling. Well, expertly. I mean, a big fan of Fedor, Ivanov was throwing combinations, and literally not doing much when clinching to not get thrown.

Anyways, the guy you found, I think might be the only Judo gold medalist that medalled in sambo too. I mean, I could be wrong about this once again, but when i tried to look it up, a few years back, I mean, it was before he won the gold and possibly not even have had his wikipedia page up, I didn't see ANY Russian with Judo gold or world medals, especially in combat sambo even now, but some mongolian or whoever with Judo silver or bronze in sports sambo, I don't think so much in Combat Sambo either regardless of which country they are from.

Anyways, personally if you ask me, I think it's really cool to have someone who won Gold in Judo and silver or bronze in Sports Sambo, he must be a beast, would love to see him in MMA.

Also, little off topic, is Nemkov really a sports and combat Sambo world champion? I heard on here that he was, but when I tried to look it up on google or whatever, it didn't appear to me as clear.

 

[Ivaylo Ivanov]

It's much appreciated! It's pretty cool, I haven't really heard of those guys before elsewhere. The very first guy that you mentioned doesn't even come up when I googled him, and some doesn't have their own wiki pages.

They dont usually speak English
If you research in Cyrillic though...

 

[dsdoubled]

Well, it's probably not a good thing, but I spent way too much time on here, so when some people agree to disagree, not about any martial arts or what happened on Sherdog forum, I tend to be rather confident on my own recollection of the event, but there are also times that I find out things differently than I thought, so I can't say, but my impression was yeah, people thought he was fighting scrubs, and that's why it was a huge shock when he got upset by chubby Bulgarian. To be fair, though I am not an expert in Sambo, but by BJJ MMA wrestling standards, it looked like Ivanov was stalling. Well, expertly. I mean, a big fan of Fedor, Ivanov was throwing combinations, and literally not doing much when clinching to not get thrown.

Anyways, the guy you found, I think might be the only Judo gold medalist that medalled in sambo too. I mean, I could be wrong about this once again, but when i tried to look it up, a few years back, I mean, it was before he won the gold and possibly not even have had his wikipedia page up, I didn't see ANY Russian with Judo gold or world medals, especially in combat sambo even now, but some mongolian or whoever with Judo silver or bronze in sports sambo, I don't think so much in Combat Sambo either regardless of which country they are from.

Anyways, personally if you ask me, I think it's really cool to have someone who won Gold in Judo and silver or bronze in Sports Sambo, he must be a beast, would love to see him in MMA.

Also, little off topic, is Nemkov really a sports and combat Sambo world champion? I heard on here that he was, but when I tried to look it up on google or whatever, it didn't appear to me as clear.

I do remember it was a shock when Fedor lost in sambo. I didn't pay much attention to sambo myself though.

There have been quite a few (judo) Olympians and (judo) world medalists who also medaled in sambo worlds or combat sambo worlds. I do think Mudranov is the only Olympic champ though. I actually posted a list here on Sherdog a while back.

Which Nemkov are you referring to?

 

[Ivaylo Ivanov]

When it comes to Fedor though, since Fedor was the third behind Tamerlov and Mikhaylin(sp?), the multiple time world champs and olympic medalists, wouldn't Fedor technically be the best Russian ever to have competed at Judo and Combat Sambo? Even better than Ali Kurzhev that you mentioned?

No, Fedor is just one of many.
Blagoy Ivanov, the chubby Bulgarian, as you said is also a decorated Judo competitor:
https://www.judoinside.com/judoka/33836/Blagoy_Ivanov/judo-career
Here is a 3 times SAMBO women champion from Mongolia, who went 2nd in Judo at the Rio Olympics.
https://www.sambo-fias.org/en/news/...-prizere-dzyudoistskogo-turnira-v-rio-3-krat/
Those are just a few examples...

 

[dsdoubled]

Well, it's probably not a good thing, but I spent way too much time on here, so when some people agree to disagree, not about any martial arts or what happened on Sherdog forum, I tend to be rather confident on my own recollection of the event, but there are also times that I find out things differently than I thought, so I can't say, but my impression was yeah, people thought he was fighting scrubs, and that's why it was a huge shock when he got upset by chubby Bulgarian. To be fair, though I am not an expert in Sambo, but by BJJ MMA wrestling standards, it looked like Ivanov was stalling. Well, expertly. I mean, a big fan of Fedor, Ivanov was throwing combinations, and literally not doing much when clinching to not get thrown.

Anyways, the guy you found, I think might be the only Judo gold medalist that medalled in sambo too. I mean, I could be wrong about this once again, but when i tried to look it up, a few years back, I mean, it was before he won the gold and possibly not even have had his wikipedia page up, I didn't see ANY Russian with Judo gold or world medals, especially in combat sambo even now, but some mongolian or whoever with Judo silver or bronze in sports sambo, I don't think so much in Combat Sambo either regardless of which country they are from.

Anyways, personally if you ask me, I think it's really cool to have someone who won Gold in Judo and silver or bronze in Sports Sambo, he must be a beast, would love to see him in MMA.

Also, little off topic, is Nemkov really a sports and combat Sambo world champion? I heard on here that he was, but when I tried to look it up on google or whatever, it didn't appear to me as clear.

Check these guys

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natik_Bagirov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Georgiev_(judoka)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_Rybak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_Mudranov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Kazusenok

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yauhen_Biadulin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Iliev

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khashbaataryn_Tsagaanbaatar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashdavaagiin_Amartüvshin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Ivanov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levan_Zhorzholiani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassilios_Iliadis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otgonbaataryn_Uuganbaatar

 

[Ivaylo Ivanov]

To be fair, though I am not an expert in Sambo, but by BJJ MMA wrestling standards, it looked like Ivanov was stalling.

This.
It was a very common match, in terms of SAMBO, especially when it comes to HWs, when one punch finishes the fight.
I have commented this match so many times here, explaining second by second the scoring, that I promised my self to never do it again.
Sherdog doesnt deserve the effort.

 

[JustOnce]

I do remember it was a shock when Fedor lost in sambo. I didn't pay much attention to sambo myself though.

There have been quite a few (judo) Olympians and (judo) world medalists who also medaled in sambo worlds or combat sambo worlds. I do think Mudranov is the only Olympic champ though. I actually posted a list here on Sherdog a while back.

Which Nemkov are you referring to?

The guy who just beat Phil?