Dude is a beast. I cant find any info on him though as to his grappling history. I know hes a wrestler but how did he get into submission grappling? Does he train in pure bjj at all? I can only find videos of him at ADCC/GQ , im interested in his background, anyone have a biography or any interviews?
He's been around for quite some time compites in Naga type of tournaments, he is a beast and this set if rules are tailor made for him
He's kind of a mystery. His trains at a gym called KDojo in NJ, which I guess is a sambo/wrestling school. They've had some very tough Russian MMA fighters, but I don't think it's a very big place. I've never seen him compete with a gi. I thought he might have been training at Renzo's with another KDojo guy, Ozzy Dugulubgov, but I've never heard of him training with Igor, Danaher, etc. Like the other poster mentioned, ADCC rules are perfect for him. Fun fact: The first time I ever saw him compete was at a NAGA against Bill Duff, the big guy from that Human Weapon show. It wasn't a good day for Bill.
this KDojo seems like an interesting place. Finally another school in the US that teaches Russian Sambo with instructors from former Soviet Union besides Koulikov. http://www.kdojomma.com/ They have a quite a big team made up of north Caucasus peoples. I did not know NJ even had a North Caucasus community. They teach something called BANA which is a Russian highland fighting system.
There are only points within the first 10 minutes of a match. After that time, you get negative points for pulling guard, so he can use his wrestling advantage to get a takedown and grind it out.
He has trained at Renzo's on a number of occasions in order to get training in with different bodies, but he's by no means a Renzo guy or a Jiu Jitsu guy.
Yeah, Rustam actually won the 2010 North American Trials but couldn't attend ADCC because of an injury, iirc. He's been a high level guy for a long time now. He's a force to be reckoned with under almost any submission grappling rules. At Ultimate Absolute 2011 he beat Cyborg and Davi Ramos and then took Galvao all the way to sudden death overtime: [YT]RSmEt9Otuzg[/YT] [YT]Rx6n-YETsBE[/YT] [YT]nRYguKVlVsw[/YT]
I think at some point, Holt mentioned him as a sort of tertiary presence in the open freestyle tournament scene in that region of Russia. He has, I believe, competed in some freestyle tournaments recently, I believe he lost (rather badly) to Jon Reader at the Dave Schultz memorial this year or last. So in the grand scheme of things, there are much better wrestlers out there. I don't think there is necessarily a large Caucasian presence in NJ, that particular camp (KDOJO) seems to be a focal point for fighters from the area that move to the US because of the Caucasian coaching staff. The whole BANA/highland-fighting-system sounds like a made up thing. EDIT: here's the match from the Schultz: https://youtu.be/M9i7u-eD88Y no idea how to embed tho...
Is this Chsiev guy strictly a freestyle wrestler who picked up submissions after his wrestling career was over?
I don't know. Cyborg was the much larger of the two and he didn't really do anything until about 2:30 in when he goes for a triangle. Rustam escapes it in about 5 seconds (2:30-2:35). Then Rustam goes for a kneebar which gives Cyborg an opening to put one hook in. Rustam shucks/drops/slams him off the front in about 15 seconds 3:42-3:57 and that's where Cyborg hurts his shoulder. So, I'm counting two solid offensive attempts from Cyborg that spanned about 20 seconds total up until the shoulder injury. [YT]I0-zq5BDJas[/YT]
I mean, he still puts on the singlet from time to time... he just seems to be a general grappling enthusiast or something.
Magomed (77kg guy) was 2nd place at World Combat Games in Grappling and 2014 World Grappling Champion (under FILA/UWW) One of best grappler out of Daghestan at the moment
Interesting enough, I believe Keenan's first foray onto the grappling scene was when he beat Rustam as a purple belt. Then they had a match Saturday at ADCC which was essentially a draw. Off topic: Keenan didn't look good this weekend, IMO.
rules were different and rustam got a couple of more years of training, so did keenan, but its very hard to out grapple a guy like rustam.
Actually no. This info from his interview (it's in russian): He has freestyle wrestling base but had no great succes in Russia due to very high level of competition in this sport there (I think because of Dagestani domination). However he wanted to make a success in wrestling and moved to USA to do this. But because of some circuimstances (I'm not sure I remember what they were) he failed to find good wrestling gym. Then he occasionally saw grappling and thought that is very weird (pull guard and other stuff with spreading legs :icon_chee), though he started to train and eventually liked it and made a decent success in NAGA and other no gi events. Here's link to interview:http://cominf.org/node/1166495189 I can translate it if somebody interested.
Chsiev has been a fringe guy on the freestyle scene for international tournaments taking place in the USA. I have seen him lose to some guys with slightly above average NCAA skill. Then, in the last 2 years, he got a few wins over guys that were like WTF? He has beaten 2 NCAA champs within the last year or so, which makes me think he trains like a typical Russian wrestler where they only compete in most tournaments because they are obligated to and then dont really go the extra in training, then when it matters they take it much more serious.
