You namend the problem of todays Judo: „ The reality is they are two totally different sports with different rule sets, strategies, and end goal. “ Judo is not struggling only in the U.S., it is struggling at all because Judo lost itself in some essential points. Kano designed a kind of early MMA. Today it is a strictly limited takedown-game. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely still absolute beautyness in it, but early Judo was about to win a fight 1 vs. 1 and nothing else. In that simple comparison it was successfull: first over all the traditional japanese styles and later worldwide over wrestling, boxing and whatever else. -A throw was a major move to bring the fight on the ground including a good position to submit afterwards following the throws impact. BJJ took simply another direction during that time. It never lost the essential goal to win a fight 1 vs. 1. And in this phase of developement are the differences why BJJ is todays „hot shit” and Judo is not. -But nower days there are tendences in BJJ to repeat the same mistakes Judo did (inkl. that olympic bullshit-machine).🫣 My Judo is neither a different sport nor does it have different strategies or a different end goal. Sayin this after more than 40 years on the mats as a Judoka and meanwhile a BJJ BB since a few years, too. But this are -of course- only my 50 cents…💁🏻‍♂️

That is an interesting point of view. It's true judo has become very sportified. We even refer to them as "players" now. Sadly I agree with you that bjj is going the same route with the current IBJJF rule set. But that's probably for another forum. Honestly this was one of my biggest motivations to start judo. To recombine the martial arts to create a more complete grappling skill set.

I'm a 2nd-degree black belt in BJJ and a 3rd dan in Judo (and I also have instructor degrees in Jeet Kune Do and Krav Maga). I think BJJ is more popular than Judo for the following reasons (some of which have already been articulated in earlier posts): (1) BJJ is a cornerstone of MMA, but Judo is rarely seen there: MMA fighters almost universally train in BJJ for their ground game (along with wrestling for takedowns and both Muay Thai and western boxing for strikes). As a result, whenever somebody is thinking about training in a martial arts, they probably have BJJ on their mind, but not Judo. When Ronda Rousey was destroying everyone in the UFC a few years back, there was an uptick in Judo interest, but athletes like her are regrettably rare. I teach Judo at an MMA gym and I think that no-gi Judo is a "secret weapon" in MMA since most fighters aren't used to defending judo throws (only wrestling takedowns). (2) Olympic Judo does not attract wrestlers: One of the best "feeder groups" for grappling martial arts is wrestlers, since they are performance athletes who are often looking for a grappling sport to train in after graduating high school or college. No-gi BJJ is perfect for wrestlers since it allows leg takedowns and unlimited time on the mats, which means wrestlers can instantly be dangerous in BJJ. Judo typically doesn't teach no-gi (though Freestyle Judo does have a no-gi curriculum) and leg attacks are banned, so wrestlers have to learn a completely new game, which means there is more of a learning curve before they become competitive. (3) Judo is high-impact, while BJJ is low-impact: I know quite a few BJJ guys who don't like taking Judo throws. I have been seriously injured in judo (e.g., permanent neck damage, a shoulder injury that needs surgery, and a hip injury that I just had an MRI for today). (4) Judo is formal and BJJ is relaxed: I did foreign study in Japan, so I don't mind bowing and using Japanese terms, but many Americans hate it. BJJ has a relaxed, Western feel to it that most Americans prefer. I suspect that this might be the case in many European countries as well. (5) BJJ has a self-defense curriculum, but Judo only has self-defense kata: Most of BJJ is sport-oriented these days, but there are still quite a few schools that emphasize self-defense (e.g., Burton Richardson, Gracie University, Rickson Gracie, etc.). Individual Judo dojos might teach self-defense, but it's not something that the IJF really encourages, and we often have to make up our own self-defense curricula.

I can't really address your main question here, but I can talk about the history of judo popularity. I have been doing judo since I was 5 years old, and at that time, it was almost as popular as BJJ is today. "From Russia With Love" had judo black belt, Honor Blackman, as one of the main stars, and judo rode on the skirt tails of the James Bond popularity. You couldn't go to a playground without some kid pretending to take down an opponent with a "judo chop", basically a rabbit punch to the back of the head. Spy shows and movies abounded in the 1960's and judo was heavily featured in all of them. Two things helped to destroy the fad. Firstly, the judo school chain, run by Jerome Mackey, was effectively forced into closure when Mackey was convicted of fraud and sent to prison. Secondly and most significantly "The Karate Kid" was released, and a new much more accessible martial art replaced judo in the main focus of popular culture. Judo schools across the country were replaced by karate schools, and judo never really recovered. The Olympics brought judo interest back briefly into focus, but ironically it also really destroyed judo as many long term practitioners understand it. Traditional judo is a complete martial art with striking, groundwork, resuscitation, self defense as well as take downs which include single and double legs as well as hip throws, hand throws, sweeps, blocks and sacrifice techniques. It has arm locks, elbow locks, foot and ankle locks, hip locks, blood chokes and wind pipe chokes. How then does it differ from BJJ? The real answer is not very much. It's more of an attitude and approach to teaching since judo also incorporates a formal sense of co-operation and ethics, which, in BJJ is entirely dependent on the instructors and the sensibilities of the individual practitioners. Sport judo, on the other hand, is ruled by Olympic committees and seemingly arbitrary changes from year to year. Any proper judo school should spend at least half as much time on matwork as it does on stand up. It is quite ironic to me that judo should be considered dangerous compared to BJJ, since in the past it was considered one of the safest sports. But the "win at any cost" attitude created by international competition (which Kano totally objected to) has eroded those safety features, and sadly, many of them are simply not taught at judo clubs. Learning how to fall safely was always the first and foremost (and arguably the most important) thing one ever learned at a judo school. I've seen more serious injuries from bad BJJ take downs than I have from judo throws, because BJJ schools tend to overlook the importance of learning to fall safely. I currently teach judo as an adjunct to BJJ (where I am a 3rd degree black belt), but although I emphasize throwing techniques, I also spend a great deal of time teaching efficient pinning and escapes, arm bars and chokes, and all my students have expressed how much my attention to detail has dramatically improved their BJJ rolling abilities. As for self defense, traditional judo is certainly as good as BJJ (which makes sense since it is the foundation of BJJ). Back when I won my two competition gold medals in judo in New York, there was an international self defense competition. I partnered with a German judoka who I had only met a few days earlier, and we came in 4th place in a field of 20 international teams using all judo techniques. Other teams were representing all sorts of both hard and soft martial arts. But my point is that self defense has always been a significant part of the judo curriculum. It is only ignored if the school is singly focused on judo as a sport, in which case one can argue that it's not really judo.