Too many people have caught up and the Gracie's are to blame, they sold their family secret to the masses and now they are figured out, they should have never spread Gracie jiu jitsu around the world.
They've never really progressed with the sport. Vitor Belfort was the only heavy-handed guy who was once called a "Gracie" (but wisely chose to use his own name) who was really good at anything outside BJJ. And he started in 1996. You'd think they'd diversity their skillsets more, but it hasn't happened. Kron barely cut weight, which is more of an old school thing the Gracies and a lot of Japanese fighters did in the early days of the sport.
That's why some call them the Disgracie
The funny thing is the Gracies did their best not to train other UFC fighters in "GJJ" in the early days. I think that's what the brawl between Tank Abbott and Alan Goes (outside the cage) was about. Allegedly, Kimo learned a little GJJ before fighting Royce because a friend of Joe Son (his trainer) took lessons from Rickson then taught Kimo.
First of all, you shouldn't be so mad. Name calling has no place here. Second, you need to look at this differently. Kron Gracie making it to the main card slot means that anyONE here could make it to the main card slot on PPV.
I'm pretty sure it was Joe Moreira who trained Kimo in BJJ, even then Joe was not as good as Royce it was like you mention the training tapes and schools going mainstream around the 2010's and that coincides with all the new black belts appearing, in the 90's there weren't as many of these BJJ clubs that were high level and they were in the cities like NY and L.A now there everywhere it was a huge mistake imo and has watered down the sport.
I trained briefly with some former judo guys in the mid-90s who used the Gracie VHS tapes and even started doing some boxing and MT. The sport caught up with the Gracies well before the 2010s, as evidenced by Sakuraba beating them and guys like Frank Shamrock (who never trained in official BJJ) being as dangerous in the guard as any Gracie by around 1997. Of course, MMA and BJJ wasn't in small towns everywhere like now as you mentioned. But even mid-sized city schools who were open to new things started incorporating "NHB" in the 90s.
Oh there was always catch wrestling and shoot fighting as Pancrase was the Japanese version of UFC, and my point wasn't that the Gracie's would forever rule over the combat world but that now they are almost cut out entirely from the sport because they exposed to much as what they knew, they aren't getting exposed because of Judo and catch wrestling no it's because non Brazilians have mastered BJJ to such a point that it has been made into more of an accessory to other things, I would go as far as to say wrestling is more important and better than BJJ in 2024 because so many know how to shut down BJJ by knowing it, you can thank the explosion of mma schools mostly BJJ themed for that.
