I used it to great effect in a bar brawl once. I was working security, some guy swung at me and I went straight into an arm lock pinning him to the ground. Nobody hurt, no problem and I was able to restrain him with a minimal amount of effort til the other guys came and escorted him out.

Aikido is great in self-defence situations where someone is coming at you. Of course the drills are contrived, their purpose is to train your muscle memory not actually to prepare you for combat.

It's not great for performance really.

The whole "come at me bro, but no not like that" thing is really something that only new practitioners will do because they're amazed by the power of these techniques.

The real weakness of Aikido is the pressure on the joints. I'd love to do it still but my knees can't take it any more.