Origins of the Majdov Takedown

by Oon Yeoh

In the recent Paris Grand Slam, a player named David Lima of Brazil did a takedown commonly associated with Nemanja Majdov of Serbia. For sure, Majdov is not the only player who does this technique but he does it very frequently, and often with great success.

But he was not the one who invented this technique. It’s not clear who actually invented it but the first time I saw this technique being used in international competition was by a Russian player named Dmitri Nossov in the 2004 Athens Olympics, when he threw Japan’s Masahiko Tomouchi with it twice for waza-ari-awasete-ippon.

Like Nossov, Majdov takes a cross grip with his right hand (holding onto uke’s right lapel) and with his left hand, he takes a grip on uke’s left sleeve. From there, he does the takedown, which some have referred to as sumi-otoshi.

In the Nossov-Tomouchi match, the Japanese live commentators called it sumi-otoshi. In the Majdov example in the video clip (above), IJF’s live commentator Neil Adams calls it a sumi-otoshi/kata-guruma.

Watch the full technique in the end of the video

The truth is, it’s very hard to classify it. Calling it a sumi-otoshi is not wrong as it is very much a tewaza where uke is thrown towards his back. But there is a drop down and uke does kinda falls onto tori’s shoulders before being thrown over, so kata-guruma is not wrong either. I guess it’s just easier to call it the Majdov Takedown. If you say that, everybody knows what you are talking about. But if we want to give the pioneer of this technique his proper due, perhaps we should call it the Nossov Takedown.

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