SAMBO is a martial art and combat sport developed and used by the Soviet Red Army in the 1920s to improve their hand-to-hand combat abilities.

The sport is similar in many ways to judo and jutjutsu but also incorporates different types of wrestling and various self-defence systems.

The name “SAMBO” derives from the Russian acronym SAMozashchita Bez Oruzhiya, which literally means “self-defence without weapons”.