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Kimuras were never really that popular. It seemed like you saw 'em more because there were a lot more specialists years ago in the bigger organizations; Hiroyuki Abe's known for being one of the best grappling coaches in Japan, and people who've trained with him talk about how he knows all these crazy entrances and variations of leg-locks that you wouldn't be able to learn anywhere else, just as an example. It's not really like they were way more common, it's just the specialists like that had platforms you could watch 'em on. Grappling-heavy styles nowadays are more streamlined and about hyperfocusing on the basics rather than trying some new stuff, which's why you see so many guys who have extremely similar fighting styles to the point where it's almost cookie-cutter. This may just be me, but don't Mirsad Bektic, Chad Mendes and Alexander Volkanovski all fight extremely similarly? I can't even think of a big difference between how the three of them fight that isn't nitpicky.
The Kimura also typically requires putting yourself in a position that risks you getting put into a vulnerable position should it not work and a skill with "riding" your opponent, and both of those things are kind of passively discouraged nowadays. Learning the ride has pretty much always been discouraged in Jiu-Jitsu because of the way the points system is in competitions-- if you're riding your opponent, you're not securing half guard or finalizing a pass, so you're not getting any points-- but the fact that you can get reversed and be put into a vulnerable position means a lot of guys don't go all-in with trying to finish it, and, well... you kind of have to be all-in if you really wanna get a finish.
You see a lot of crazy submissions like that in ZST, if you're interested. That organizations always had an extremely good grappling-development system. The basic submissions-- a rear-choke from back control, an opportunistic guillotine, either a well-timed or a methodically-progressive armbar-- have always been way more common, though. It's the same reason you see more people get hurt with jabs, hooks and round kicks than you do with the smash punch or front kicks.
However, the greater move to the cage rather than a rope surrounding in this sport is a partial reason for it. The cage nerfs a lot of grappling moves (single-legs are the big one; they're all about forcing the guy off-balance and using leverage and rotation to force the guy down, and it's a lot harder to do that when the guy can dig themselves into the wall of a cage), just as a roped surrounding nerfs a lot of grappling moves that work great in a cage (you don't see double-legs nearly as much in any ringed organization like you do in the UFC; once you can actually sprawl, a double-leg becomes WAY easier to defend.) If you lock up someone's arm from side control, the person can get themselves in a much more advantageous defensive position by maneuvering closer to the cage; it can act as a barrier preventing your arm from either getting cranked or your opponent from moving to a better position to execute, and, of course, a wall to walk and posture yourself up with, which, for obvious reasons, can help escape it. Try doing any of that with a rope-- even defending a takedown by grabbing onto the cage is easier than grabbing onto the rope.
A related example of that was the Tatsuya Kawajiri-Clay Guida fight. Kawajiri wasn't entirely himself in that fight-- it was in Abu Dhabi [temperature of about 120 degrees during the event] and Kawajiri's a gigantic featherweight, and the heat in the area's been known to fuck up recovery from the weight-cut for a lot of big fighters (Kendall Grove nearly KO'd Mark Munoz like 3 times in their fight in Abu Dhabi)-- but the difference in grappling styles between a guy who's spent his career in a ring compared to a guy who's spent it in a cage was very interesting. Guida basically won the fight by holding onto Kawajiri in a reverse bearhug position and kneeing him in the ass and legs and occasionally getting a nice takedown between that. Kawajiri defended it in classic Japanese fashion, though, by focusing on breaking Guida's grip around his waist and, when he did, grabbing hold of a double-wristlock ala Kazushi Sakuraba and using that to reverse the position. Guida was able to nullify that significantly, though, just by digging Kawajiri into the cage on the side of the arm he'd locked up so he couldn't get any space to turn the arm around. He was able to land it once, though, in a very nice highlight-reel moment (there used to be a gif of it, but not no more.)
It was called a double-wristlock before it was a Kimura and it's been taught in Jiu-Jitsu since at least the 50's, and Jūdō for decades before that. It's not some rare move that only worked cuz' nobody knew how to defend it; I don't know where you're getting that from. Josh Barnett had a double-wristlock locked in on Nogueira 11 years ago and Nogueira defended it just by doing the classic switch-between-americana-and-kimura maneuver with his elbow.
The Kimura also typically requires putting yourself in a position that risks you getting put into a vulnerable position should it not work and a skill with "riding" your opponent, and both of those things are kind of passively discouraged nowadays. Learning the ride has pretty much always been discouraged in Jiu-Jitsu because of the way the points system is in competitions-- if you're riding your opponent, you're not securing half guard or finalizing a pass, so you're not getting any points-- but the fact that you can get reversed and be put into a vulnerable position means a lot of guys don't go all-in with trying to finish it, and, well... you kind of have to be all-in if you really wanna get a finish.
You see a lot of crazy submissions like that in ZST, if you're interested. That organizations always had an extremely good grappling-development system. The basic submissions-- a rear-choke from back control, an opportunistic guillotine, either a well-timed or a methodically-progressive armbar-- have always been way more common, though. It's the same reason you see more people get hurt with jabs, hooks and round kicks than you do with the smash punch or front kicks.
However, the greater move to the cage rather than a rope surrounding in this sport is a partial reason for it. The cage nerfs a lot of grappling moves (single-legs are the big one; they're all about forcing the guy off-balance and using leverage and rotation to force the guy down, and it's a lot harder to do that when the guy can dig themselves into the wall of a cage), just as a roped surrounding nerfs a lot of grappling moves that work great in a cage (you don't see double-legs nearly as much in any ringed organization like you do in the UFC; once you can actually sprawl, a double-leg becomes WAY easier to defend.) If you lock up someone's arm from side control, the person can get themselves in a much more advantageous defensive position by maneuvering closer to the cage; it can act as a barrier preventing your arm from either getting cranked or your opponent from moving to a better position to execute, and, of course, a wall to walk and posture yourself up with, which, for obvious reasons, can help escape it. Try doing any of that with a rope-- even defending a takedown by grabbing onto the cage is easier than grabbing onto the rope.
A related example of that was the Tatsuya Kawajiri-Clay Guida fight. Kawajiri wasn't entirely himself in that fight-- it was in Abu Dhabi [temperature of about 120 degrees during the event] and Kawajiri's a gigantic featherweight, and the heat in the area's been known to fuck up recovery from the weight-cut for a lot of big fighters (Kendall Grove nearly KO'd Mark Munoz like 3 times in their fight in Abu Dhabi)-- but the difference in grappling styles between a guy who's spent his career in a ring compared to a guy who's spent it in a cage was very interesting. Guida basically won the fight by holding onto Kawajiri in a reverse bearhug position and kneeing him in the ass and legs and occasionally getting a nice takedown between that. Kawajiri defended it in classic Japanese fashion, though, by focusing on breaking Guida's grip around his waist and, when he did, grabbing hold of a double-wristlock ala Kazushi Sakuraba and using that to reverse the position. Guida was able to nullify that significantly, though, just by digging Kawajiri into the cage on the side of the arm he'd locked up so he couldn't get any space to turn the arm around. He was able to land it once, though, in a very nice highlight-reel moment (there used to be a gif of it, but not no more.)
It was called a double-wristlock before it was a Kimura and it's been taught in Jiu-Jitsu since at least the 50's, and Jūdō for decades before that. It's not some rare move that only worked cuz' nobody knew how to defend it; I don't know where you're getting that from. Josh Barnett had a double-wristlock locked in on Nogueira 11 years ago and Nogueira defended it just by doing the classic switch-between-americana-and-kimura maneuver with his elbow.
