‘Russian Dancer’ Makhachev’s Sambo ‘Doesn’t Exist’

Islam Makhachev is one of the best grapplers in MMA, if not the best.

Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Lightweight champion, Makhachev, will seek his second consecutive title defense at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates this weekend (Sat., Oct. 21, 2023). Instead of rematching Charles Oliveira, who he won the belt from in the first place (watch highlights), Makhachev is now set to rematch UFC Featherweight kingpin, Alexander Volkanovski.

The pair of champions first met at UFC 284 in Sydney, Australia earlier this year (Feb. 11, 2023), resulting in a hard-fought unanimous decision victory for Makhachev (watch highlights). Ahead of the bout, Volkanovski prepared his ground game with multiple-time Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) champion, Craig Jones. “The Great” has once again enlisted the talent of Jones for this short-notice camp and with a win, Jones believes Volkanovski effectively kills Makhachev’s combat sports base of Sambo.

“It makes him a man that disproved Sambo, and that will trump his legacy in the sport because we’ve wasted another martial art,” Jones told Submission Radio (h/t MMA Junkie) of Volkanovski. “Most martial arts were killed in 1993. Somehow, Sambo has limped and lingered on to 2023. So Volkanovski kills Sambo, and we get to stop hearing about this Russian dancer.

“The last fight, we spent a ton of time on submission defense,” he continued. “Obviously, that’s a waste of time because as we learned, Islam doesn’t know any submissions. He just holds on to the back for 20 minutes. This time, we’ll probably get out of the body triangle. There was no submission threat at all, so Volk was just chilling, getting energy back, punching him in the head. This time, we’ll get out of that.”

The majority of Makhachev’s success as a competitor has come from his abilities on the ground, taking down and smashing opponents en route to a technical knockout or submission. In 25 fights, the Russian has only suffered defeat once, which came from a knockout on the feet opposite Adriano Martins in his second UFC bout in October 2015.

Ultimately, Jones just doesn’t see the differences between Sambo and other grappling arts, therefore, making it fake.

“We’ve heard about catch wrestling. We’ve heard about Sambo. We’ve never seen it work,” Jones said. “If Islam gets a submission, that’s a jiu-jitsu submission. If he gets a takedown, that’s a judo takedown. If he shoots a double-leg, that’s a wrestling move. So for me, where’s Sambo? Sambo is a myth. It doesn’t exist.”