Soldier wrestles local in Afghanistan

There isn’t very much information available for this video. From what we can see, it looks like while a group of US soldiers in Afghanistan were meeting with some locals, two of the guys decided to have a friendly wrestling match. They spend the first 45 seconds or so in a tie-up, jostling for hand postion. Eventually, the soldier appears to get over-extended and put just a little too much weight on his lead leg. The local capitalizes, wrapping up the lead leg before transitioning to a double leg takedown. The soldier quickly scrambles off of his back but that appeared to be enough to award the local the 2 points. The video cuts off pretty quickly but it looks like they’re about to exchange a friendly fist bump.

It is pretty cool to see combat sports and martial arts transcend cultural and language barriers. In all likelihood, these two guys weren’t even able to communicate much with one another. Still, through mutual respect and an understanding of wrestling, they were able to throw down and a have a little fun. From what we’ve gathered from youtube comments, which are always the pinnacle of unbiased truth, it looks like they were wrestling in the traditional Afghan style. Initially, it looked to be pretty similar to Greco-Roman, with both guys working for upper-body leverage. Since the match ended with a double-leg takedown, the Greco-Roman rules don’t seem to apply. More than likely, it was some sort of a “house” or “local” rules wrestling match. Perhaps somebody with more knowledge on this kind of thing could offer us some insight? Either way, it was an entertaining match and hopefully it helped the two groups build some camraderie and trust in one another. No one got hurt and everybody had fun, that’s all that matters right? You can pick up your participation trophy at the door.