[3][4] The word "SAMBO" is an acronym for SAMozashchita Bez Oruzhiya, which literally translates as "self-defense without weapons".
Sambo is relatively modern since its development began in the early 1920s by the Soviet Red Army to improve their hand-to-hand combat abilities.
[3] Intended to be a merger of the most effective techniques of other martial arts, sambo has roots in Japanese judo, international styles of wrestling, plus traditional folk styles of wrestling such as: Armenian kokh, Georgian chidaoba, Romanian trântă, Tatar köräş, Uzbek kurash, Mongolian khapsagay and Azerbaijani gulesh.
Compared to Oshchepkov's judo-based system, then called "Freestyle Wrestling," Spiridonov's style was softer and less strength dependent.
ARB (Russian: Армейский Рукопашный Бой; Armeyskiy Rukopashniy Boy; 'Army Hand-to-Hand Combat') is a Russian martial art of training for protection and attack receptions that incorporated many functional elements from an arsenal of individual hand-to-hand combat and martial arts from around the world, and has been used in real fighting activities.