Jeff Allen, Huntsville’s Judo Champion, won two gold medals at the Aurora Annual Jujitsu Championships in April, fighting in the Elite Ultra Heavyweight division and in the Absolute Division— a tournament matching all the gold medalists against each other.
“That’s a big tournament, I fought the year before (2024), it was the first one they ever made, and I ended up fighting through a 27-man black belt, no weight class, no belt level,” said Allen. “I went to the final and got gold.”
The Aurora event is special to Allen because they waive his entry fee and use his image for advertising.
In the 2025 competition, Allen fought through a smaller pool of only four combatants in his division and six in the Absolute, but he estimates that it was the same amount of fighting.
His son Lucas, another well known Huntsville athlete, won a silver medal in the Men’s Ultra Heavyweight Division.
Allen pointed out that, although he and Lucas are Judo Champions, not trained in traditional Jujitsu, they have spared and trained locally with Jujitsu belt holders. Judo tournaments are harder to find and require extensive travel to the United States.
“We saw these jujitsu tournaments, [and we thought], why don’t we just give one a shot, and see how we do on it. Once we started doing them, it was very similar to Judo in the sense that it’s almost basically the same kind of competition, other than you just spend more time doing ground fighting. So, I said, let’s do these in between, kind of like a cross training, in between our Judo, to keep our Judo training sharp, and it worked out really well because we ended up actually competing in more Jujitsu tournaments than we do Judo tournaments, just because there’s way more of them.”
On April 26th, 2025, Jeff won gold in the NAGA (North American Grappling Association) World Championships, in Morristown New Jersey. Allen had a tough competition, fighting through 13 fighters to get gold, winning the World Championship Belt.
Both Lucas and Jeff Allen will be competing in the Canadian National Championships for Judo, in Calgary, from May 15th to the 18th. With over a thousand entrants, which Jeff has competed in many times, Lucas, who won the under 21 National Championship in 2023, is looking to reclaim his Championship title on May 17th. He will also be competing in the Senior division, where he will be looking to win his first senior title on May 18.
Jeff Allen will fight in the Newaza Championships (Ground Fighting) on May 15, 2025. Separated in 2019 from the National Judo Championships, Newaza has become one of the biggest divisions in Judo because it’s a crossover event for both Judo and Jujitsu-trained athletes. “Starting on the ground and you fight on the ground, basically looking for a submission at a choke and on lock, or a hold down, like a pin,” explained Allen. “And actually, I won the grand championships in 2019.”
Allen and his family have several planned major events this year, including the World Jujitsu Championships on the last weekend in August in Las Vegas. The World Judo Championships, where Jeff Allen won a silver medal in 2024, will be held in Paris, France, on the first week in November.
Jeff Allen and his family take enormous pride in their accomplishments in Judo and Jujitsu. Their passion for martial arts is not only for the sport, but to celebrate in each other, and travel from competition to competition, together, cheering and supporting each other while representing Huntsville and its vigorous athletic community.
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Well done Kids….Tough sport that Jujitsu !