Killing any original olympic sport is insane. But then again, the olympics are a circus these days. Craig Jones will find a way to organise something better anyway.

and to be sure, having Judo in the Olympics saved Judo waaaay back in the day and made it the second most popular sport in the world, but it also has taken away a lot of techniques and aspects of original Judo. If it were to be a 'demo sport' then cool, but if BJJ got into the Olympics then I fear much of what makes our martial art unique/different from others would be potentially stripped etc.

85% of judoka are under 18 so it's popularity claims come with a huge caveat. Frankly it's easy to get kids into sports because parents are looking for it. When you retain them as adults and have a thriving amateur scene is when I get more impressed.

I love Greco and competed in for the first time this year. But it fails miserably on what an Olympic sport is supposed to do. It's not growing, confined to small geographic region and doesn't even include women! Meanwhile Freestyle is setting records for female participation.

If a sport being popular around the world and growing is a requirement for Olympic sports then it seems like half of the sports they have now should be canned.

I think this is a major point. I can say from experience that trying to join a Judo Club as someone my age in my area is a pretty big waste of time. I spent about a third of the class playing football and no one really cared about teaching me. I see a lot of BJJ groups and gyms locally putting a great focus on kids here in Germany, which I think is a huge mistake. The thing people enjoy the most is how open things are open for everyone. And this is really what is making BJJ so popular right now. If BJJ tries to go the Judo path, I see that aspect going away and the big push going to the kids and everything becoming what we were trying to avoid in the first place. Case in point, there is actually a UWW national team here in Germany and there are qualifier tournaments. I have a friend whose a member and wanted to give their Elite division a try. I was told I was not allowed to register because I'm too old. A month later I took gold in the adult division of another tournament. Meaning everyone on the podium in that division was allowed to compete in that UWW Elite division, except the guy who won. 🤷‍♂️

I have no objections to that, half of them I wouldn't even call a sport to start with

Sorry in advance for bad english and not getting my points straight :) Wrestling in general is a big sport all over the world. Last time they talked about removing wrestling is probably the last time Iran, USA, Russia and China was united in one cause :) That beeing said, the style of Greco Roman has a big problem. Actually the same problem you often see when you have 2 world class BJJ practitioners going against each other = lots of stalling and boring matches. When we see the first matches in the olympics (maybe not olympics but in worlds), when the #1 seed meets the worst seed, you see beautiful throws that is the art of wrestling. The rules that have existed the last 10 years is a problem. Another problem is mindset and Refs. Here is the biggest problem with the rules: If 2 wrestlers are passive, the most passive wrestler gets 'punished' after some minutes. The most active wrestler then gets 1 point and chan choose between to continue on the feet, og get some seconds on top in the Parterre position. Most attempts are unsuccessful. The least active wrestler is now under 1 point. Lets say in the next period he is slightly more active, he gets the same chance. The position now is 1-1, with the wrestler 'scoring the point' last in the lead (because he was the latest to score). So 100% of those wrestlers just stall... You dont have to look further than Freestyle wrestling to see success. Although it is 'easier' to score points (double leg, single leg is/can be easier than pure upper body takedowns). The Quarter final in 86 kg was 16-14 in points. A very fun match. Here you get a 30 Second window to score points if you are inactive. And the refs are better to call for action. Another thing, if wrestling, made some changes to the training, embraced that wrestling is a huge part of and success factors of MMA, and was better at marketing, you would see way more recruiting. Another thing you could do (this pisses off the traditionalists) is change the uniform to shorts and t-shirt (nogi). What we also has to realize that is coomon for Judo and wrestling. A big Koshi Guruma, or a head and arm throw is no fun, and it is usually less fun the older you get ;)

The level of excitement in a sport doesn't seem to matter that much to the IOC. Who wants to sit and watch a marathon for 2 hours? Same for any other endurance event. If it's not a team sport and it takes more than a few minutes to decide who won it's probably boring to everyone in the world who isn't a participant in the activity.

These are the massively inflated figures for most popular events. I'd like to point out that if 45% of adults were watching a sport then it would get considerably more than the 33m views the Olympics gets each day, but that aside I think the ranking is probably right.