History Main / BloodSport

* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'': Starting with ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando'', there tended to be two such arenas in each game. Each one would let you fight in a variety of matches against waves of enemies or bonus bosses and most fights featured some form of gimmick like traps, restricted weapons or ammo, or the battlefield periodically flooding with lava. These include Maktar Resort and Megacorp Games from ''Going Commando'', [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal Annihilation Nation]], [[VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked the Dreadzone]], [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankToolsOfDestruction the Imperial Fight Festival]], [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankACrackInTime the Agorian Battleplex]], and [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankIntoTheNexus the Thugs-4-Less Destructapalooza]].

* ''VideoGame/ApexLegends'' is centered around the Apex Games, a BattleRoyale blood sport that drops its contestants into massive, sprawling arenas to search for guns and eliminate their opponents.

* One of the tamer uses of this trope, being from Creator/{{Nintendo}}: ''VideoGame/FZero'', a supersonic anti-gravity racing game where one false move can send you hurtling off a track suspended several kilometers above the ground. It looks like the [[TruthInTelevision real life]] Formula 1... however, Formula 1 has many safety features in its regulations - such as chicanes in the tracks, tyre walls at every corner, and engine size limits, all of them aimed at keeping active (driver skills) and passive (crumple zones) safety [[StealthPun caught up]] with the vehicles' speeds - while the F-Zero is technically ''anything goes''.

* ''Manga/AirGear'': The Air Treks initially began as a worldwide fad that was supposed to be inline skating taken to the next level. It turned into the Blood Sport it is today right around the time people discovered you could use the skates to make RazorWind, [[WhipItGood Thorn Whips]], [[ShockAndAwe Electrical]] [[RazorFloss Spider Webs]], [[MakeMeWannaShout Sound Barriers]], [[ShockwaveStomp Shockwave Stomps]], [[TimeMaster Time Manipulation]], and [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]].

* Boxing in ''Film/RealSteel''. Since robots have replaced humans on the ring, there's nothing to stop the competitors from ''obliterating'' their opponents.

* One episode of ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'' features a pair of cities whose constant warfare has been replaced by regular pogroms of the local villages. The cities compete to see who gets the most kills.

* Ratings Games in ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', the arena combat sport used by Devil [[ChessMotif Kings]] to settle disputes. Several different formats are seen, but all actually have significant restrictions in place to prevent actual loss of life - pieces are "taken" rather than killed and retired to a holding area, medical attention is available after the fight, and attacks that could kill the target outright are heavily restricted or forbidden. Interestingly, the only time a no-holds-barred Ratings Game is seen, it was an entirely genuine attempt at good sportsmanship (a RunningGag is the protagonist team being horribly skewed toward overpowered nukes with precious little tactical acumen to go around).

* Used in ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "Judgement Day", where convicted murderers are hunted down on national television by the relatives of their victims.

** In "By Infernos Light", Worf is held captive by the Dominion and forced to fight a series of Jem'Hadar to the death as a Jem'Hadar training exercise.
** "Captive Pursuit" had the quarry in a HuntingTheMostDangerousGame-type sport come through the wormhole and take refuge on the station.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' gives us Tsunkatse, a ForcedPrizeFight which is often to the death.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Bread and Circuses," the PowerTrio ends up in [[PlanetOfHats Rome crossed with the 1960s]], where traditional-style gladiator battles are televised sport events.

* ''Film/{{Rollerball}}'', adapted from the William Harrison short story ''The Rollerball Murders'', provides the image and quote at the top of this page. In it, the MegaCorp that runs the world uses the sport (a combination of roller derby, basketball, and a street fight) as a way to both provide BreadAndCircuses to the masses and to demonstrate to them the virtue of conformity and self-sacrifice and the folly of individualism. That backfires when the protagonist Jonathan E. emerges as a star player, an individual who excels at the game above and beyond his peers. There was also a remake in 2002, but it pretty much jettisons most of the story, and is far less well-remembered than the original.

** UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}} and UsefulNotes/IndyCar aren't averse to it either. To this day, a common joke about NASCAR is that a lot of fans are ''really'' there for the spectacle of "the Big One", the kind of multi-car pileup that can only happen on a long oval circuit in a tightly-packed field of cars going over 150 miles per hour. Such high-speed crashes can easily turn fatal, as UsefulNotes/DaleEarnhardt learned the hard way at the 2001 Daytona 500. Again, modern safety features implemented in the wake of Earnhardt's death have lessened the risk considerably; while fans of a certain generation are still liable to wince when they see a crash, these days the only things getting hurt are metal and rubber rather than flesh and bone.

* A theme deck from TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering's ''Ravnica'' block was called ''Rakdos Bloodsports''.

* Implied in ''TabletopGame/ResArcana'', where the Duelist can generate a Gold essence if you pay 1 Death essence. In other words, they kill their opponent and make money on it.

* ''VideoGame/PuckOFF'' combines ice hockey and fighting in a way most suitable for a bloody sport. You don't have to score s single goal to win a game. It's enough if you beat others senseless.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2206 SCP-2206,]] a series of radio broadcasts of baseball games from an alternate universe, one where violent fights between players are both common and expected, assassination attempts have been made on ''entire teams'', players include [[FantasyKitchenSink ghosts, cyborgs and genetically-altered humans]], and one team plays home games in the caldera of an active volcano.

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' features Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, a game show where players fight their way through booby-trapped mazes and fursuited enemies for cash and prizes.

* ''Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax'' from ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', as well as the ''Genkibowl VII'' DLC, mixes this with a wacky Japanese game show like ''Series/TakeshisCastle''. It seems to mostly consist of shooting or beating on mascots and cardboard targets with various weapons; ''Genkibowl'' expands on this to include such bizarre events as rolling around a giant ball of yarn through Steelport to cause massive damage. Professor Genki himself is implied to be a DarkMessiah of some kind.

* Sarge from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' invented [=GrifBall=], where the object is to score points... and kill Grif. It became an actual multiplayer game type for ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' and subsequent installments in the series.

* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'': Starting with ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando'', there tended to be two such arenas in each game. Each one would let you fight in a variety of matches against waves of enemies or bonus bosses and most fights featured some form of gimmick like traps, restricted weapons or ammo, or the battlefield periodically flooding with lava.

* ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'': Tossball, in addition of being [[{{Calvinball}} the bastard child of lacrosse, cricket and who knows what]], frequently has players wounded or killed on the field, with "excessively sportsmanlike conduct" being considered foul play. While the player can't play it, tossball racquets and sticks can be used as weapons and are as good (if not ''better'') as a sword or a two-handed hammer.

* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' winds up in two of these during the show's run. A [[TheThunderdome Thunderdome]] after being captured and forced to compete [[spoiler:which he single-handily manages to shut down after the area's warriors prove no match for him.]] and an underground creature fight ring after being turned into a chicken and captured by a greedy Italian man.

* The Air Treks of ''Manga/AirGear'' initially began as a worldwide fad that was supposed to be inline skating taken UpToEleven. It turned into the Blood Sport it is today right around the time people discovered you could use the skates to make RazorWind, [[WhipItGood Thorn Whips]], [[ShockAndAwe Electrical]] [[RazorFloss Spider Webs]], [[MakeMeWannaShout Sound Barriers]], [[ShockwaveStomp Shockwave Stomps]], [[TimeMaster Time Manipulation]], and [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]].

* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'' has Motorball, which is basically Film/{{Rollerball}} [[UpToEleven on steroids]], with competitors weaponizing their cyborg bodies to better tear each other apart. The corrupt owner of the games (Vector) turns a blind eye on such things [[BreadAndCircuses as long as people keep watching for the thrills]], only intervening against such practices when it suits him (such as having the previous owner of the Grind Cutters dismembered to give them to Grewishka). Needless to say, death isn't out of the ordinary in this sport.

* Wrestling/{{CZW}}, while not quite to the level as most of the previously mentioned promotions that came before, still might be the single most violent wrestling promotion in the history of USA. Imagine Wrestling/{{ECW}} but with the violence and sadism factor [[UpToEleven pushed to the roof]], sometimes [[RooftopConfrontation literally]]. That's [=CZW=] in a nutshell. At the very least, it managed to get electric powered weed whackers banned from all sporting events in the nation, and it's "Cage Of Death" was good enough for Big Japan to copy(but of course, [[UpToEleven make even more dangerous]]).

* [[http://io9.com/5884309/ultimate-tazer-ball-is-the-shocking-sport-of-the-future Ultimate tazer ball.]]

*** Inverted in the ''Shivering Isles'' expansion. /wiki/Shivering:Perfumed_Letter Some]] [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Scented_Parchment notes]] [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Scroll_%28Cann%29 found]] in a ruined Arena show that slaves were abducted to engage in sex for the spectators. The captives instead assumed they were being prepared to fight to the death, and instead murdered each other on the arena floor, to the disappointment of their captors.