Sambo is a composite style of jacket wrestling originally developed at the turn of the 20th Century to serve as a universal form of combat sport for the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union, each of which had one or more of its own distinct styles of folk wrestling, with widely varying rules.It was also used as a form of hand-to-hand combat preparation and training by former Soviet military for use in unarmed combat. Sambo today is practiced in three flavors: Sambo Sport-flavor, the third style of international wrestling; Sambo Combat-flavor, a method of self-defense and subject control; and Sambo Special-flavor, a method of Close-quarters Combat and Psychophysiological Conditioning "under extreme situations" (also known as "Combat Sambo Spetsnaz" and recently "Russian Martial Art").