Introduction. Since Judo first showed up in the Olympic Arena (Tokyo, 1964) we have observed many top-ranked Judokas losing from athletes classified as "Outsiders". How exactly did these famous athletes lose to someone who is not considered to be at the same level as them? Since there are no published studies on the subject, we planned a study whose aim was to discover the causes of "Judo legends" defeats against "outsiders" in Olympic Games-2016. Methodology. The methods of the study were: analysis of match documentation in all 7 Olympics' Men categories and analysis of video records of judo matches. As an "outsider" we classified a Judoka who is: 1. Not in the top 8 of the World Ranking list before the Olympic Games (WRLBOG), but ends up being in the top 7 Olympic athletes; 2. At least 10 positions below (in WRLBOG) the Judoka with whom he competed. 3. Not a former Olympic champion. All 256 Judo matches of men during the OG-2016 were analyzed; 24 of them met all of these 3 criteria and were submitted for further analysis by observational criteria. Results and discussion. Three main reasons for defeat of famous Judokas were identified: 1. The "outsider" is using an unorthodox technique or grip which cannot be classified as traditional, i.e., he is performing a movement a little bit different from the traditional or known way so far. 2. The "Judo legend" is doing a "fatal mistake". 3. The "Outsider" is following a tactical strategy leading to penalizing the opponent. Ideas similar to our finding were discussed by Sterkovicz & Maslej (1999) in a study on Polish Judokas and Sacripanti (2014) in his biomechanical analysis of Judo throws. Based on the results of our study, coaches can establish new training methodologies for enhanced effectiveness against superior opponents.