Judo, sambo and wrestling cross over a lot, and someone high level in one should be able to compete in another.
Sambos problem is that it is largely a Russian sport and a sport that played third fiddle to judo and wresting (Olympic sports). However, it is a native Russian sport so it is emphasised for patriotic reasons. That’s why you got judo guys like Fedor competing in sambo. This in effect raises the quality of the sambo fighters in the cis countries. Their quality continues to grow as the sport grows. That being said, there have been a lot of pure sambo guys (with little cross training or competing outside of sambo) who has fought in Pride and the ufc and looked horrible everywhere. I think we will see less and less of this sort of amateur sambo as the sport grows in Russia.
Outside of cis a lot of sambo guys are purely hobbiests and don’t compete or cross train. This means their skill level remains relatively low, so when Chanel goes to his shittt local Oregon sambo school he smashes a bunch of Amateurs.
Khabib seems to have grown up on an environment in which all the grappling sports are intermixed, but combat sambo got a special preference as it’s a great precursor to mma. Obviously Khabib learnt pure wrestling and could compete in wrestling. But the same could be said for sambo and probably judo as well. At the end of the day he is a grappler who can use his style in a gi and with striking. Regardless of your style, it impossible not to admire what he can do.
The traditionally strong sambo countries have government subsidized programs for their sambo federations, same as judo and wrestling.
Medalling internationally in sambo brings a lot of benefits, state prizes, sometimes military ranks and pensions, then lastly, private sponsors gifts (cars, apartments and etc.).
So, in terms of amateur grappling athletes, sambists are very well taken care of.
Crossover between athletes is so common, people dont really care about the competition calendar. Instead, they just pick up the competitions from all 3 (5-6 if we include both Olympic wrestling styles, BJJ and ADCC)and stay active. Mongolian sambo, judo and wrestling team for example, is essentially the same guys, all of them coming from mongolian bokh.
The sambo gyms are usually doubled with another Olympic discipline (meaning Olympic subsidies, besides the sambo federation ones) and then MMA, these days BJJ or whatever the athletes have interest in.
There are strictly sambo or combat sambo oriented gyms (Sambo 70, SC Ilinden, SK Absolute and many more) where competitors train very specifically for their main discipline.
Sambo and more specifically combat sambo guys have been participating in MMA tournaments from the very beginning, in Pankrase, RINGS, Shooto (too many to mention in those 3, but lets say Fedor, Kharitonov, Volk Khan, Kopilov, Iliuchin, Vovchanchin are the most famous ones), Belator (Minakov, Blagoi Ivanov), early UFC and up to this date in many EU MMA organizations.
Sambo is a great sport and has been developing globally over the last 30 years.
I dont know who is Chanel and what he does in Oregon, but he is more than welcome to visit any competitive sambo gym in Eastern Europe, Russia or the stans and get schooled.