History Main / NotJustATournament

** ''Fatal Fury 2'' then plays it completely straight, with Krauser simply hosting a tournament in order to find someone worthy of a good battle. He even enters it himself (beating all the characters left out of the sequel enroute to the final)!

** The NESTS Sage ('99-'01) was also this too, but got complicated due to in-fighting of the members who each had their own little plan.
** ''King of Fighters XII'', which is considered non-canon, shows what the tournament would be like if there was no sinister force manipulating events behind the scenes. As it turns out, just a straight fighting contest.
** Interestingly, the first ''VideoGame/FatalFury'' game, which is the first to portray the ''King of Fighters'' tournament, simply portrays the tournament as being a legit one held by Geese with no sinister motive behind it. It's only Terry, Andy and Joe who have an ulterior reason for entering - to get close to Geese. Geese himself doesn't interfere with the tournament at all and only makes his move, upon realising who the heroes are, after the final.

** ''The King of Fighters XIV'' subverts this as the tournament really doesn't have anything going on behind the scenes. The backstory says the sub-boss, Antonov, bought up the rights to the "KOF" name and only uses them to host a tournament that is entirely within the spirit of the title. [[spoiler:Thus the twist is the final boss, Verse, who shows up during the tournament finals, has no connection at all to the tournament and is a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere]].

* ''SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium'' has a tournament that actually turns out to be a project by both Geese Howard and M. Bison to gather powerful warriors to make into a clone army. The victor of the tournament would go on to fight three clones (Leona, Kyo, and Haohmaru, if you're playing as a Capcom character; or Morrigan, Zangief, and Akuma for an SNK character) before fighting Geese and Bison, then finally, either an Orochi-empowered clone of Iori, or a Satsui no Hadou-empowered clone of Ryu.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 2'': Kazuya announces the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 2 to get rid of Heihachi and his other enemies. ''Tekken 3'': Heihachi announces the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 3 to lure Ogre out in order to capture him using the contestants as bait. ''Tekken 4'': Heihachi needs to get the Devil Gene to become immortal so he announces the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 4 to lure Kazuya and Jin out to obtain the Devil Gene. ''Tekken 5'' Jinpachi announces a King of Iron Fist Tournament in the hopes that someone will defeat him before he is overtaken completely by an evil spirit and destroys the world. ''Tekken 6'': Jin announces a new King of Iron Fist Tournament as part of the Mishima Zaibatsu's war against G Corporation, which is run by his father Kazuya, all of which was necessary to make an ancient monster physical in the real world and allow him to battle it to the death.

* ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' is set up as a tournament hosted by Teddie. [[spoiler: It's a Midnight Channel dungeon for Labrys, one of Aigis's sisters. And the Malevolent Entity/Hi-no-Kagutsuchi and Sho Minazuki are both playing with the whole thing, as revealed in the sequel.]]
* Interestingly, the original ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'' both is and isn't "just a tournament" (following some RetCanon post-movie). It "is" in the sense that the gathering of the warriors for the tournament itself has no pretense other than just a gathering of warriors but it "isn't" as well because each individual tournament counts towards a rolling total of wins or losses. Should a realm lose ten times consecutively in Mortal Kombat, then they forfeit the right to hold back an invasion by the realm they were competing against.
** [[VideoGame/MortalKombatII The sequel]] abides by this trope fully, though. The second tournament is merely so Shao Kahn can divert the Earthrrealm warriors' attention away from their home realm by keeping them preoccupied in Outworld. His goal is to resurrect Sindel in Earthrrealm, the consequence of which plays out in [[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 the following sequel]]. After ''Mortal Kombat II'', the entire concept of the TournamentArc is dropped from the series altogether, symbiotically rendering this trope moot as well.

Regardless of the exact type of tournament this often results in [[DudeWheresMyReward whatever reward was promised]] to the winners [[TheCakeIsALie being a ruse]]. At the worst the tournament is UnwinnableByDesign. Sometimes its sinister purpose is derived from [[StatusQuoIsGod perpetuating the competition]].

* ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' is set up as a tournament hosted by Teddie. [[spoiler: It's a Midnight Channel dungeon for Labrys, one of Aigis's sisters. Even more intriguing is the Malevolent Entity who's playing with the whole thing. What seems to be a mere spin-off may actually be a Wham Episode for the entire ''Persona'' series if it's confirmed that he's Nyarlathotep, Big Bad of ''Persona 2'' and Chessmaster of the first game. There's even another theory that makes him the Bigger Bad of ''Persona 3'' and ''4''.]]

* Season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/Ninjago'' is about the Tournament of Elements, organized by Master Chen in order to steal the elemental masters' powers and cast a spell to turn his followers into Anacondrai.

** ''The King of Fighters XIV'' subverts this as the tournament really doesn't have anything going on behind the scenes. The backstory says the sub-boss, Antonov, bought up the rights to the "KOF" name and only uses them to host a tournament that is entirely within the spirit of the title. [[spoiler:Thus the twist is the final boss, Verse, who shows up during the finals, has no connection at all to the tournament and is a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere]].

** ''The King of Fighters XIV'' subverts this as the tournament really doesn't have anything going on behind the scenes. The backstory says the sub-boss, Antonov, bought up the rights to the "KOF" rights and only uses them to host a tournament that is entirely within the spirit of the name. [[spoiler:Thus the twist is the final boss, Verse, who shows up during the finals, has no connection at all to the tournament and is a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere]].

* "The Mystery Knight", one of the ''Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg'' to ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', takes place during a tournament that's [[spoiler: secretly a gathering for conspirators trying to start a second Blackfyre rebellion]].
** Also, supposedly the infamous Tournament at Harrenhal was reported to be one of these. The only reason King Aerys, who had not left his castle for some years, attended, was because he had been told that his son Rhaegar was gathering the nobles of the realm to plan for a coup. This story has not yet been confirmed.

* The Tourney of Creator/PiersAnthony 's ApprenticeAdept series definitely turns out to have aspects of this. Even according to the publicly known purpose of the Tourney, it's the best way for an enterprising serf to rise in status; but in Stile's case it makes an even bigger difference, because the sentient Game Computer has plans that involve the fate of two worlds, Proton and Phaze. Also, the final fight between Stile and his enemy the Red Adept consists of a contest, which Red loses and therefore gets banished to the worlds outside Proton.

** Interestingly, the first ''FatalFury'' game, which is the first to portray the ''King of Fighters'' tournament, simply portrays the tournament as being a legit one held by Geese with no sinister motive behind it. It's only Terry, Andy and Joe who have an ulterior reason for entering - to get close to Geese. Geese himself doesn't interfere with the tournament at all and only makes his move, upon realising who the heroes are, after the final.

* ''Film/KamenRiderDecadeAllRidersVsGreatShocker'': Decade arranges the Rider Battle tournament for the Kamen Riders to decide which of their world would be saved. By this point, however, Decade has already recovered his lost memories as the leader of [[LegionOfDoom Great Shocker]], which means the whole competition was just to eliminate the All Riders from his plans of multiversal conquest.
* ''Film/SuperHeroTaisenGPKamenRider3'', as the title implies, features a race of Kamen Riders. But right from the start of arranging the competition ''Series/KamenRiderDrive'' demands the high stakes: that should he, against all odds[[note]]he's the only heroic Rider in the race, all the other competitors are brainwashed "Shocker" Riders[[note]] win, Shocker must return the timeline to what it once was.

* ''{{Champions}}'' campaign ''The Great Supervillain Contest''. The Crimson Claw sets up a competition among the Earth's greatest supervillains to determine which one is the most powerful. The prize is the Emerald Eye of Azog, which will increase the winning villain's already great abilities. What the villains don't know is that once the winner bonds with the Eye, it will take him over and turn him into a gate that will allow dangerous demons to come to Earth.

* "The Mystery Knight", one of the ''Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg'' to ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', takes place during a tournament that's [[spoiler: secretly a gathering for conspirators trying to start a second Blackfyre rebellion]].

* ''[[VideoGame/AdvancedVariableGeo Advanced V.G.]]'': Like the OVA it loosely inspired, the VG tournament is simply a means for [[BlondesAreEvil Miranda]] [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Jahana]] to field test her GattacaBabies, by pitting them against the tournament entrants. Which also allows her to do away with any opposition she faces from those such as Yuka, or Miranda's daughter, Reimi.

** Besides the invasion plot and the display aspect, Gaara and Neji use the tournament for personal grudge matches. While killing is not encouraged in the tournament, it's not prohibited either

*** Played with during the Friendship Cup in the following arc. The idea behind it is that it's supposed to promote harmony between the rich Tops and poor Commons, as well as giving the Commons a chance at finding fame and fortune. The twist: anyone who loses (likely Commons, as Tops can afford better cards and training) will be sent to work in the city's trash for the rest of their lives, cleaning up after the Tops. The tournament is entirely a rouse to appease the Commons while still oppressing them. It's subverted when Yuya learns that this shocking revelation is actually common knowledge to the people of this dimension, and they don't think it's bad.

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* The World Grand Prix from ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Cars}} Cars 2]]'' was actually organized by the Lemons just so they can zap all of the competing race cars with a deadly radiation cannon as an attempt to discriminate all alternative energy sources and force everyone back to using gasoline.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'', the Dazzlings manipulate the school into holding a BattleOfTheBands competition, so that they can [[EmotionEater feed on the conflict]] to supercharge their powers and take over the world.

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