Well, do societies have a tremendous incentive to find unarmed martial arts which work?
If my tribe faces an existential threat from the next tribe over, wouldn't I pick up a stick?
Catch wrestling split in two ways. On one side, it had submissions banned and became Olympic freestyle wrestling. On the other, they played up the drama and it became modern professional wrestling.
https://www.abada.org/capoeira-history/
I think rather than look at the results, it is interesting to look at the forcing functions the results operated under.
The same applies for wrestling high-crotch or blast double. If you put someone down hard on the nearest solid object or concrete, there's a good chance the fight is immediately over.
That said, in a real scrappy fight, landing a proper judo through is a tall order. I've seen high level black belts fail to land clean throws on spazzy white belts. They get them down and technically win, but not cleanly, and not with the force needed to end the fight. Newaza (ground techniques, i.e. BJJ) comes in there to help finish.
Pure BJJ is great if you are fighting on dirt, and great to know defensively if you do find yourself ambushed or otherwise on the ground in an altercation. But in a real fight you should do your best to put the other guy down hard, get on top, and stay on top. Modern BJJ in particular is far too willing to concede top position, though modern MMA is thankfully pushing back on this some.
BJJ didn’t develop until the 20th century because the competitive rules in which that style of mock fighting is most effective didn’t solidify until the 20th century.
If you engages in BJJ like ground fighting techniques, it’d be like that scene in Indiana Jones where the crazy swordsman final boss shows up, and Indy just shoots the guy. Some other guy would come over and step on your neck, stab you, or just shoot you while you’re down, or your opponent will gouge your eyes out, because that’s the real world response. Historical fighting manuals are pretty explicit: never, ever get caught on the ground or you’re dead.
It’s just that most of the ways in which a standing person would attack a nearby person on the ground are so dangerous that they are outlawed from sport competition, and so ironically even the notoriously “everything goes” MMA ends up favoring ground game and devolve into wrestling matches.
BJJ is well suited for the octagon. Allow small joint manipulation and most of the technique goes out the window.
By far the most popular thing to teach is some variant on Krav Maga. Which focuses heavily on rapid incapacitation while maintaining your ability to move. Going to the ground wrestling is an excellent way to be taken out by your enemy's ally, or finding out the hard way that your enemy had a hidden knife you didn't know about.
The success of BJJ in MMA has not changed what gets taught to people who actually are at risk of winding up in a street fight with lives on the line.
On top of that Severn, Frye, and Coleman all came from western wrestling backgrounds and they did pretty well in UFC...
1. Many martial arts consider armed/unarmed just variations of a theme, and practicing unarmed is often safer, and used as "phase 1".
2. A lot of the modern day stuff can be traced back to Japan at a time when the government funded "civilized sports that help you grow", and then the Olympics got involved... we're pretty far distanced from "defend the village" at that point.