I think anyone who knows even the slightest bit about MMA knows that the sport is huge over in Kazakhstan, but I’m not sure how many of you will have heard of this weird basketball/MMA crossover called Batyr Ball that’s also popular in the region.

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Batyr Ball seeped into the public consciousness a few months ago when a couple of videos started making their way onto the internet and everyone started questioning just why the hell the crazy Kazakhstani people had created this weird game that doesn’t really seem to have any rules that make any sense? From what I can tell though, the game is 3 V 3 in an MMA octagon with a basketball net that’s not that high off the ground.

A regular basket is worth one point whilst a three pointer is worth two points. Physical contact seems to be allowed anywhere and traditional basketball rules like travelling don’t seem to apply either.

There’s some great parts in the video below where the guys perform suplexes and drop toe holds on each other and just generally smash the crap out of each other. The dude commentating also does quite a good job of summing up the absurdities of the sport:

Yeah what the hell is going on there right? Such a weird idea and it also seems impossible to understand it? Don’t get why they don’t just smash them straight away when they get the ball to be honest, but maybe there’s some kind of rule against that? Who knows. Was badass when they smashed the backboard too.

Would love to know how they popularised such a strange contest. Maybe Ben Affleck could make a movie about it?

For more of the same, check out when a Russian MMA league texted out armoured knight fighting. That was a weird one too.