Sports: The russian 'Sambo/Sombo' popular in the West

Disclaimer; Sambo is a Russian martial art and combat sport;"SAMBO" is an acronym for SAMooborona Bez Oruzhiya, which literally translates as "self-defense without weapons". Called "Sombo" in english at times due to the racially-charged feel of the word in USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(martial_art)

Your challenge is to bring this art/sport into the west, and make it big if possible. How 'big'? Maybe grand popularity along a certain russophiliac edge in slavic nations, by example... Maybe a World Union.. A sport in the Olympics...

Would an early fall of USSR help it? A rise of the left in North America? A large expats communauty? An official program of it in Warsaw Pact?

I challenge you!
 
Whats the most popular martial sport in the West currently? Wrestling or boxing. Its going to be pretty hard to offseat those with 'Russian wrestling' due to their long history and how specialized Sambo is.

So lets look at it from another angle. Rather than a sport, but as a martial art/self defense.

What comes to mind when you hear the words martial arts? Kung fu? Karate? And how did those get popularized? Hong Kong, or more specifically their movies.

What you need are lots of Russian martial arts movies. And good ones as well. You got to get the name out (ie get people to know Sambo exists) and you got to really cement it in the mind of the Western people. So when people think of martial arts they think of Bruce Leeyovich or Iakov Chanski.
 
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Jasen777

Donor
Have some Russian experts in it do well in MMA fights when that starts to go public. It could be the choice for MMA fighters instead of jujutsu and gain popularity.
 
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