r/judo -90kg 21d ago

Competing and Tournaments 2025 World Championships: Top Scoring Techniques

Additional data and write-ups: Lightweights | Middleweights | Heavyweights

177 Upvotes

44 comments sorted by

27

u/Animastryfe 21d ago

Seoi-otoshi was dethroned. When was the last time this happened? Is this due to recent rule changes?

11

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 21d ago

It's a possible emerging trend that may stem from the new rules, along with athletes adjusting some of their strategies. We'll see how the rest of the year unfolds, then I can make a direct comparison between 2024 and 2025.

6

u/d_rome 20d ago

Yoko Shiho Gatame was dethroned compared to last year's World Championships.

6

u/Jorgengarcia 21d ago

An welcome trend, sick to death of the seoi meta.

3

u/Rodrigoecb 20d ago

Probably with the introduction of yuko some of the other throws are scoring more

1

u/kahnpur 20d ago

What are their recent rules chances? Csnt drop anymore?

2

u/judo_matt 18d ago

Newaza action for the non-throwing player counts for as action for passivity purposes; it's harder to force shidos by dropping.

11

u/Various-Stretch2853 21d ago

Nice statistics. Whats the source?

31

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 21d ago

I collect that data and track it in Excel. Since I review the match footage individually, it can sometimes take me a while to complete large tournaments. You can check out my previous posts for other tournaments and overall World Tour data.

6

u/Brandonix26 21d ago

It's amazing work, very interesting honestly

3

u/idontevenknowlol nikyu 20d ago

What do you use for the actual graphs? 

1

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 20d ago

I use excel to generate the initial graphs and then further modify them in powerpoint

2

u/idontevenknowlol nikyu 20d ago

Very nice, that's a lot of work! I suppose once you have your PowerPoint template it's not so bad. Still very creativr way 

2

u/cerikstas 20d ago

Not all heroes wear capes

2

u/Mobile-Estate-9836 Judo Brown Ikkyu / BJJ Brown / Wrestling 18d ago

I would love to see the percentage of left v. right (same side) of those Ouchi garis. If its larger than average, it could mean more people are starting to take an opposite side stance, or the prevalence of lefties in Judo is increasing (I say this as a Judo lefty).

2

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 10d ago

For Ouchi-gari, 32 scores were against same-sided opponents (ai-yotsu) and 27 were against opposite-sided opponents (kenka-yotsu). Lefties are far more common internationally, but generally they make up around 40-41% of the athletes based on the Olympic entry data.

2

u/Mobile-Estate-9836 Judo Brown Ikkyu / BJJ Brown / Wrestling 10d ago

Sweet, thanks for the stat update!

9

u/gNominatum 21d ago

These are always awesome. Do you have any plans to make the raw data available publicly or on substack?

3

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 21d ago

Thanks! Yes, I have something in progress; I hope to have it up and running sometime after this year's Tokyo Grand Slam.

3

u/gNominatum 20d ago

If you ever do I don't think I can resist throwing the data into Tableau and playing with the data. The analysis you've done is really interesting and cool, but in terms of work I feel like the data collection is the hardest so I understand if you want to keep that to yourself.

7

u/fleischlaberl 21d ago

Thanks for the Data and Stats!

Some notes:

- Seoi not dominating as a year ago

- Uchi mata is back - 41 + 7 makikomi

- The small Ashi waza game plan works:

O uchi + Ko uchi + Ko soto gari / gake + De ashi = 157! out of 394 top 20 scoring throwing techniques

- The turn and twist over game is also back to some degree: Sumi otoshi + Uki otoshi = 39

- Dropping game also works: Sumi / Hikikomi gaeshi, Tani otoshi, Sutemi Kata guruma, Makikomis

- Five pins / holds in Top 25 and Yoko shiho number 2

Note

Game Plan for Contest regarding / considering the best scoring Throwing Techniques in High level Contest Judo : r/judo

2

u/d_rome 20d ago

O uchi + Ko uchi + Ko soto gari / gake + De ashi = 157! out of 394 top 20 scoring throwing techniques

I've spent the past month teaching these specific throws and various entries! I'm not done either.

3

u/fleischlaberl 20d ago

If we add Ko uchi makikomi the ratio would be 174 out of 394 top 20 scoring throwing techniques = Small Ashi waza about 45%!

3

u/d_rome 20d ago

Thank you for this! This is just tremendous work.

It's interesting to see how reintroducing the yuko has changed things. I'm going to look at last year's World Championship numbers to see the key differences. You have done so much work, but I am wondering if you have a breakdown of ippon waza-ari scores vs. yuko.

When the new rules were announced I was skeptical of the yuko being reintroduced, but after seeing it in action I think it was a much needed change for a variety of reasons. I was concerned that yuko would elevate Seoi Otoshi's use into the stratosphere.

R.I.P. O Goshi.

2

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 20d ago

2

u/judoguy234 10d ago

Good Info. Thanks.

Is it possible to tell on kenka-yotsu wins did the righty or lefty win?

1

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 10d ago

For the Kenka-yotsu matches, righties won 52% of them, while lefties won 48%.

1

u/judoguy234 9d ago

Thanks

2

u/d_rome 20d ago

Fascinating! Yuko has clearly changed everything!

Look at Ko Uchi Gari. Only four ippon and five (total) waza-ari scores, yet it had 28 yuko scores! I'm not asking you to do this, but it would be interesting to know the yuko win rate for all yuko scores.

My initial concerns for yuko coming back last December appears to be playing out and I don't know if that's ultimately good for the sport. I'm not sure I want to see Judo turn into a sport where World and Olympic gold medals are determined by a yuko. 54.2% of all O Uchi Gari scores came from yuko and a staggering 75.6% of Ko Uchi Gari scores came from yuko. Perhaps many of these scores were followed up by a win in newaza.

5

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 20d ago

I have an answer: for the 2025 World Championships, 47% of Yuko scores determined a match outcome, and this happened in 22% of the overall matches. For comparison, at the 2024 World Championships, 40% of the downgraded waza-ari calls decided a match outcome in 24% of the total matches. More matches in this cycle have multiple scores than in the last cycle.

Additionally, calls for 3rd Shido and direct Hansoku-make are down considerably. There are more Ippons this year, too. Regarding winning by yuko, I'd rather see a match decided by a yuko than a downgraded 1st or 2nd waza-ari score, but that's my personal preference. For me, though I have some critiques, this year is more entertaining than the previous.

5

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 20d ago

I’m away from my desk at the moment, but later I’ll be able to pull up data on that. In the meantime, my substack posts have breakdowns of the win methods. Interestingly, more matches are being won via Ippon this year than last year.

3

u/disposablehippo shodan 21d ago

I am wondering which techniques are counted as uki-otoshi. I would guess it's mostly counter-techniques that look like Sasae without using the leg, since classical uki-otoshi is rarely seen.

7

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 21d ago

Yes, in the data uki-otoshi is essentially hand counter techniques along with sumi-otoshi. If I ever I see a classical uki-otoshi on the World tour, I'll rush here to post about it

2

u/BookOk5585 21d ago

Some techniques are so interlinked and gray area it's hard to count them separately and get a picture compared to other techniques. The whole harai goshi/harai makikomi/osoto gari/osoto otoshi set are often interlinked or blurred aren't they?

2

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 10d ago

They can blur, but they have distinctive finishing mechanics that I examine for each throw, and make the determination from that. Some people like combining those categories and look at the broader picture.

2

u/Uchimatty 20d ago

Looking a lot like that old data from Japanese domestic tournaments.

2

u/_Tactleneck_ 21d ago

This is perfect, I’ll just enter 2026 Worlds and read this list and watch out for those moves. OP just guaranteed me first place!

2

u/fleischlaberl 21d ago

If some want to compare the Data from WCships 2025 to the WCships 2024

Technique stats from the 2024 World Championships : r/judo

1

u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

1

u/ppaul1357 shodan 20d ago

I doubt it’s ever been much higher. Basically no one in the lower categories throws Soto-Makikomi. It’s just not a technique that works in that divisions. And even in the heavier divisions it’s not used that often, because it’s predictable and most people can defend it well by moving in the right direction and blocking it. The only technique where Soto-Makikomi is consistently relevant is the +78

1

u/PlatteOnFire shodan 20d ago

Are you sure this is complete? Seems strange to me that there is no strangle in the top 40

2

u/PlatteOnFire shodan 20d ago edited 20d ago

My bad, there is okuri-eri-jime at 38 or Something. Didn't expect it to be that low though

2

u/DrSeoiNage -90kg 20d ago

No worries, yes, it's relatively low at 38th, and Sode-guruma-jime was at 58th in the complete data. The current trend in newaza appears to be primarily around osaekomi and juji-gatame.

1

u/Yamatsuki_Fusion sankyu 21d ago

Glad to know that my winning moves are the meta now.

Not that they weren’t already but still.