History Series / WMACMasters

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: With the first Ninja Challenge offering a chance for three ki symbols, Superstar mocks Tsunami's chances. He then challenges Tsunami to a bet where the loser has to do 100 push-ups for every one of the winner's ki symbols (Superstar had nine at the time). As the Challenge goes on, Superstar ups the bet to the winner being on the loser's back and mockingly gives Tsunami a magazine featuring Superstar. The final scene has a victorious Tsunami sitting cross-legged on Superstar's back as he completes the first third of his push-ups.

-->'''Superstar''': ''(grunting in pain) Thanks.

''WMAC Masters'' is a choreographed martial arts competition show produced by Creator/FourKidsEntertainment, and [[FirstRunSyndication syndicated]] by the company's "Summit Media Group" division.[[note]]They are essentially the same company, founded as a division of licensing agency Leisure Concepts Inc. (LCI). The company is known today as "4Licensing", but is no longer invoilved with TV production of any kind.[[/note]]

The first season was hosted by Shannon Lee, the daughter of Creator/BruceLee, and was [[AnAesop an aesop]] of the week show, with life lessons imparted in every episode. The second season dropped the host aspect, limited the aesops to AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle segments at the end, and introduced an EvilCounterpart organization, Jukido, that sought to usurp the Dragon Star in a MythArc (which is left unresolved by the end of the series[[note]]It didn't help that the very final scene has a shocking betrayal...[[/note]][]).

The first season was hosted by Shannon Lee, the daughter of Creator/BruceLee, and was [[AnAesop an aesop]] of the week show, with life lessons imparted in every episode. The second season dropped the host aspect, limited the aesops to AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle segments at the end, and introduced an EvilCounterpart organization, Jukido, that sought to usurp the Dragon Star in a MythArc (which is left unresolved by the end of the series[[note]]It didn't help that the very final scene has a shocking betrayal...[[/note][]).

''WMAC Masters'' is a choreographed martial arts competition show produced by a pre-infamy [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids Entertainment]], and [[FirstRunSyndication syndicated]] by the company's "Summit Media Group" division[[note]]They are essentially the same company, founded as a division of licensing agency Leisure Concepts Inc. (LCI). The company is known today as "4Licensing", but is no longer invoilved with TV production of any kind.[[/note]].

Clearly the inspirations are both [[ProfessionalWrestling professional wrestling]] (each of the fighters has a {{gimmick}} and there is {{kayfabe}}) and fighting games (with such things as life bars, the general aesthetics of the characters and different areas where matches take place, and even a couple actors from the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' games appearing, such as Ho-Sung "Superstar" Pak, who played the original Liu Kang; also, from TheMovie, Chris "Red Dragon" Cassamassa (Scorpion) and Hakim "The Machine" Alston (Liu Kang's first fight)).

''WMAC Masters'' is a choreographed martial arts competition show produced by the Summit Media Group (better known as [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids Entertainment]]).

Clearly the inspirations are both [[ProfessionalWrestling professional wrestling]] (each of the fighters has a {{gimmick}} and there is {{kayfabe}} ) and the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series (with such things as life bars, the general aesthetics of the characters and different areas where matches take place, and even a couple actors from the games appearing, such as Ho-Sung "Superstar" Pak, who played the original Liu Kang; also, from TheMovie, Chris "Red Dragon" Cassamassa (Scorpion) and Hakim "The Machine" Alston (Liu Kang's first fight)).

The first season was hosted by Shannon Lee, the daughter of Creator/BruceLee, and was [[AnAesop an aesop]] of the week show, with life lessons imparted in every episode. The second season dropped the host aspect, limited the aesops to AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle segments at the end, and introduced an EvilCounterpart organization, Jukido, that sought to usurp the Dragon Star in a MythArc.

* DemotedToExtra: Tiana "Black Widow" Noguchi, despite the fact she was supposed to be the women's champion but she was never seen competing. Her brother Cyclone had it almost as bad but he was finally given a match in the last episode against The Machine. The two also barely used backstage.
%%* EyePatchOfPower: Yin Yang Man has one.

* FriendOrIdolDecision: In one episode, it's revealed that the Machine's niece and nephew are a big fan of Red Dragon, and since Red Dragon and the Machine are friends, would Red Dragon mind coming over to the Machine's house one day to hang out when they're visiting? The Red Dragon promises he'll be there. However, the Red Dragon then meets a very pretty female astronaut who, after they hit it off, invites the Red Dragon to watch a rocket launching right from the base. Hey, an opportunity like this doesn't come along every day, and the Machine's a cool guy, surely he would understand, right?...it turns out the Red Dragon chose to hang out with the Machine's family after all. He just couldn't do it, he just couldn't break a promise. The astronaut understands, however, and extends another invitation for much later on.

** The ninjas that are sent to battle the Masters in the battlezones and in the cage. The ones in the cage wear regular ninja outfits, but the ones in the battlezones wear differently-colored costumes depending on the battlezones. They are not as skilled as the Masters and thus usually go down quickly; they're only there to make the matches slightly more difficult. The only exception is [[spoiler: the ninja who manages to beat both Superstar and the Machine at once...but he wasn't really a ninja, he was the WMAC Master Warlock in disguise as part of a plan to win the Dragon Star that ultimately didn't work.]]

* RedHerring: Two of them, one per season. In the first season, [[spoiler: when a ninja knocks both Superstar and The Machine off the platform, "Turbo" is suspected of having been the ninja because of a suspicious comment Turbo had made earlier about being determined to win the Dragon Star at all costs. It turns out it was Warlock, not Turbo]]. In the second season, [[spoiler: Chameleon is suspected of having been Tracer and Warlock's accomplice, tasked with stealing the Dragon Star from the women's Dragon Star match since Tracer was frequently seen talking to her. In actuality, however, Chameleon, disgusted by Tracer's advances, was actually trying to ignore him. In addition, Olympus correctly points out that if Chameleon were the accomplice, she wouldn't need to steal the Dragon Star, because she had won it fairly. When Chameleon saw that the Dragon Star had been replaced by the Jukido symbol on the pedestal, [[ScreamingWoman she screamed in genuine terror]], so she obviously was ''not'' the accomplice. It turns out the accomplice was Tsunami, of all people.]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: The first reveal is that "Warlock" and "Tracer" are actually traitors working for Jukido. The real twist is the second reveal, because it turns out a third WMAC Master was working with them as an accomplice...and the accomplice is comic relief ''Tsunami'' of all people!!!]]
* RingOut: This only happened twice. The first time was during Kid Carmichael's debut at the Danger Dock battlezone; Yin Yang Man had been winning the match in terms of life points, and one more good hit would've finished Kid Carmichael off. However, at the very last minute Kid Carmichael managed to knock Yin Yang Man off the docks into the water, instantly winning the match. The second time was during the Red Dragon vs Machine match at the Mayan Mystery battlezone; the Machine managed to knock Red Dragon into the water, again, instantly winning the match. Note that this is only in Battlezone matches; in championship shots, the whole point is throwing dudes off an elevated rotating platform.

* YoungerThanTheyLook: In a memory flashback, Babydoll is show with her dad, who doesn't age as Babydoll progressively ages in the flashback.

* DownerEnding / TheBadGuyWins: Due to the cancellation, this is the apparent end to the Jukido plot: [[spoiler: The Dragon Star is stolen by Jukido; even as the Masters realize how Jukido had pulled it off, they've already made their escape, awaiting a helicopter pickup; and worse, Tsunami is joining them, having either joined recently or had been another infiltrator sent in after Warlock, apparently proving Great Wolf's vision entirely wrong.]]
* EyePatchOfPower: Yin Yang Man has one.
* FeudEpisode: At one point in the show, Great Wolf and Tiger Claw got into a heavy feud, despite having been close friends beforehand. The reason is because in their backstory, Tiger Claw taught Great Wolf a very dangerous move in which the user jumps up and clamps both of his feet onto each side of his opponent's head, which results in a guaranteed knockout. But Tiger Claw only taught Great Wolf the move on the condition that both Tiger Claw and Great Wolf never use the move on ''each other''. The problem is, at the beginning of the "Broken Promise" episode, Great Wolf breaks his promise and uses the move on Tiger Claw. This gets Tiger Claw royally pissed off at Great Wolf, because Great Wolf had ''already'' broken his promise once before, but at the time had seemed sincere in apologizing about it and had promised not to make that mistake again. Eventually, the feud is resolved in a later match when Great Wolf uses the move again but Tiger Claw figures out how to block it this time, and now that Tiger Claw has a defense against the move, Tiger Claw is willing to forgive Great Wolf and they both move on.

* HandicappedBadass: Richard "Yin Yang Man" Branden was one; he was blind in one eye after being in a car accident as a kid.
** Another factored into his backstory, when he met a martial artist who was in a wheelchair, teaching him to look at his own blindness as a challenge to overcome rather than a handicap and inspired Richard to make up for lost time.

* {{Mooks}}: The ninjas that are sent to battle the Masters in the battlezones and in the cage. The ones in the cage wear regular ninja outfits, but the ones in the battlezones wear differently-colored costumes depending on the battlezones. They are not as skilled as the Masters and thus usually go down quickly; they're only there to make the matches slightly more difficult. The only exception is [[spoiler: the ninja who manages to beat both Superstar and the Machine at once...but he wasn't really a ninja, he was the WMAC Master Warlock in disguise as part of a plan to win the Dragon Star that ultimately didn't work.]]

* MythArc: The second season.
* TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: The World Martial Arts Council itself. We never see them except in silhouette at the arena, and their decisions are only relayed secondhand, but what they say goes, period.
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: [[spoiler: ''Averted!'' In season two, Great Wolf has a prophetic dream in which an evil, "Jukido" version of the referee destroys the Dragon Star declaring it to be a fake, but then Tsunami bursts in as the hero with the real Dragon Star in his hands. As it turns out, Tsunami is himself a traitor, he's the accomplice who helps steal the Dragon Star for Warlock and Tracer.]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: The first reveal is that "Warlock" and "Tracer" are actually traitors working for Jukido. But the viewer probably saw that coming since Warlock and Tracer were always assholes. The real twist is the second reveal, because it turns out a third WMAC Master was working with them as an accomplice...and the accomplice is comic relief ''Tsunami'' of all people!!!]]
* RingOut: This only happened twice. The first time was during Kid Carmichael's debut at the Danger Dock battlezone; Yin Yang Man had been winning the match in terms of life points, and one more good hit would've finished Kid Carmichael off. However, at the very last minute Kid Carmichael managed to knock Yin Yang Man off the docks into the water, instantly winning the match. The second time was during the Red Dragon vs Machine match at the Mayan Mystery battlezone; the Machine managed to knock Red Dragon into the water, again, instantly winning the match.
** Note that this is only in Battlezone matches; in championship shots, the whole point is throwing dudes off an elevated rotating platform.

* ShowWithinAShow: All the in-ring action technically takes place in one, especially in the first season. It mostly vanished after Shannon Lee left the show.
* SignificantAnagram: [[spoiler:Tracy Swedom=Destroy WMAC]]
** They happen to have an anagram finder, this leads to some humorous anagrams of the other characters.
*** [[spoiler: However, the anagram finder didn't reveal Tracy Swedom's true nature, because the Masters were called away before they could run the finder on him, and Tracer took advantage of the opportunity by erasing his particular incriminating anagram from the finder, before walking away gloating in song.]]
* {{Tomboy}}: Lady Lightning.
* TookALevelInBadass: Any Master who graduates from the Academy; those who train at the academy take part in the competition as the ninjas, getting the crap beat out of them by the Masters. A ninja who distinguishes themselves during their training gets called up to the competition as a Master. Tsunami is the first to do so, followed later by Kid Charmichael.
** This applies to a lesser extent to the other Masters as well; as the title suggests, the World Martial Arts Council recruits martial artists from the tops of their fields, most notably Herb Perez, who took gold in Tae Kwon Do at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

WMAC stands for the World Martial Arts Council, an organization dedicated to the competition of the world's best martial artists, all competing for the "ultimate prize", the Dragon Star, which acts as a championship belt of sorts. For the most part, these competitions take the form of one-one-one obviously choreographed martial arts battles, though other demonstrations and tournaments are shown.

Clearly the inspirations are both [[ProfessionalWrestling professional wrestling]] (each of the fighters has a {{gimmick}} and the whole thing is rather {{kayfabe}} heavy) and the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series (with such things as life bars, the general aesthetics of the characters and different areas where matches take place, and even a couple actors from the games appearing, such as Ho-Sung "Superstar" Pak, who played the original Liu Kang; also, from TheMovie, Chris "Red Dragon" Cassamassa (Scorpion) and Hakim "The Machine" Alston (Liu Kang's first fight)).

The first season was hosted by Shannon Lee, the daughter of Creator/BruceLee, and was very much [[AnAesop an aesop]] of the week show, with awkward life lessons imparted in every episode. The second season ditched Lee, limited the aesops to AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle segments at the end, and introduced an EvilCounterpart organization Jukido that sought to usurp the Dragon Star in a MythArc (one eventually LeftHanging). This coincided with a distinct [[GrowingTheBeard uptick in quality]].

Clearly the inspirations are both [[ProfessionalWrestling professional wrestling]] (each of the fighters has a {{gimmick}} and the whole thing is rather {{kayfabe}} heavy) and the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series (with such things as life bars, the general aesthetics of the characters and different areas where matches take place, and even a couple actors from the games appearing; also, from TheMovie, Chris "Red Dragon" Cassamassa (Scorpion) and Hakim "The Machine" Alston (Liu Kang's first fight)). Ho "Superstar" Sung is also a pretty blatant Liu Kang {{Expy}}.

Clearly the inspirations are both [[ProfessionalWrestling professional wrestling]] (each of the fighters has a {{gimmick}} and the whole thing is rather {{kayfabe}} heavy) and the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series (with such things as life bars, the general aesthetics of the characters and different areas where matches take place, and even a couple actors from the games appearing; also, from TheMovie, Chris "Red Dragon" Cassamassa (Scorpion) and Hakim "The Machine" Alston (Liu Kang's first fight)).

The first season was hosted by Shannon Lee, the daughter of BruceLee, and was very much [[AnAesop an aesop]] of the week show, with awkward life lessons imparted in every episode. The second season ditched Lee, limited the aesops to AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle segments at the end, and introduced an EvilCounterpart organization Jukido that sought to usurp the Dragon Star in a MythArc (one eventually LeftHanging). This coincided with a distinct [[GrowingTheBeard uptick in quality]].

* AmericanDream: This sums up Baby Doll's motivations. One episode centers around a loss of confidence Baby Doll suffers, and we see a flashback of Baby Doll as a little girl riding a carousel at an amusement park. Her father keeps encouraging her to try to reach out and grab hold of a "brass ring" as the carousel moves her towards it on the cycle. The problem is, she never actually managed to grab it, and the flashback ends there. Baby Doll gets her confidence back when she's reminded of the ''rest'' of what happened: her father congratulated her for trying her best to grab the brass ring, and the actual lesson he was trying to impart to her at the time was not necessarily that she always had to win, but that she always at least had to ''try''.

* RedHerring: Two of them, one per season. In the first season, [[spoiler: when a ninja knocks both Superstar and The Machine off the platform, "Turbo" is suspected of having been the ninja because of a suspicious comment Turbo had made earlier about being determined to win the Dragon Star at all costs. It turns out it was Warlock, not Turbo]]. In the second season, [[spoiler: Chameleon is suspected of having been Tracer and Warlock's accomplice in stealing the Dragon Star from the women's Dragon Star match since Tracer was frequently seen talking to her. Nope, Chameleon was actually disgusted at Tracer's advances, and as Olympus correctly points out, if Chameleon were the accomplice it would not have been necessary to ''steal'' the Dragon Star, because Chameleon won that match and thus would've gotten the Dragon Star anyway! Instead, Chameleon screamed in fear upon noticing the Dragon Star was gone, so obviously the accomplice wasn't her. It turns out the accomplice was Tsunami, of all people.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: All the Masters, actually, because according to the backstory of this show, a Master usually has to first go through training as one of the generic ninja enemies for the already-Masters to beat up on; once a ninja distinguishes himself/herself, that ninja is then promoted to Master. Tsunami is revealed to have been a former ninja, for example, and we see the debut of Kid Carmichael right after the latter graduates from being a ninja.
** Olympus was an exception, as his gold medal at the 1992 Olympics signified that he was already one of the best martial artists in the world, so he was invited by the WMAC to represent Tae Kwon Do.

* RingOut: This only happened twice. The first time was during Kid Carmichael's debut at the Danger Dock battlezone; Yin Yang Man had been winning the match in terms of life points, and one more good hit would've finished Kid Carmichael off. However, at the very last minute Kid Carmichael managed to knock Yin Yang Man off the docks into the water, instantly winning the match. The second time was during the Red Dragon vs Machine match at the Mayan Mystery battlezone; the Machine managed to knock Red Dragon into the water, instantly winning the match.

*** [[spoiler: However, the anagram finder didn't reveal Tracy Swedom's true nature, because the Masters were called away before they could run the finder on him, and Tracy Swedom took advantage of the opportunity to erase his particular incriminating anagram from the finder, before walking away gloating in song.]]

* TournamentArc: Much like pro wrestling, only more explicit as every match is intended to move up to #1 contender status and eventually win the Dragon Star. Over the course of the second season, this is gradually downplayed as the mystery grew from [[spoiler: a failed theft to identifying infiltrators from an unscrupulous organization with sinister plans to destroy the WMAC.]]

** [[spoiler: Jukido also had a set of Mooks of their own, ninjas wearing red masks and sashes. They're first seen when Warlock plants one in the crowd to fix his Dragon Star match with Red Dragon, and later he sics four of them on Wizard to keep him quiet about their past in Jukido. Presumably they would have appeared more in season 3.]]

** Olympus was probably an exception, as his gold medal at the 1992 Olympics would have signified that he was already one of the best martial artists in the world; he was presumably invited by the WMAC to represent Tae Kwon Do.

* CastTheExpert: Basically the whole point of the show; what better way to cast a show about a fictional martial arts league than with real martial artists?

* DownerEnding/TheBadGuyWins: Due to the cancellation, this is the apparent end to the Jukido plot: [[spoiler: The Dragon Star is stolen by Jukido; even as the Masters realize how Jukido had pulled it off, they've already made their escape, awaiting a helicopter pickup; and worse, Tsunami is joining them, having either joined recently or had been another infiltrator sent in after Warlock, apparently proving Great Wolf's vision entirely wrong.]]

* ActorAllusion: Just about everything about "Superstar" Ho Sung Pak is meant to remind you that he played [[Franchise/MortalKombat Liu Kang]]; not only did his fighting gear resemble a PaletteSwap of Liu Kang's, he used the same Bruce Lee kiais even though his specialty was said to be Kung Fu and not Jun Fan, and even his picture on the VersusCharacterSplash was of him doing the pose for Liu Kang's fireball. Fortunately it only went that far, with Pak's character written presumably closer to his real personality.

* TookALevelInBadass: All the Masters, actually, because according to the backstory of this show, every Master has to first go through training as one of the generic ninja enemies for the already-Masters to beat up on; once a ninja distinguishes himself/herself, that ninja is then promoted to Master. Tsunami is revealed to have been a former ninja, for example, and we see the debut of Kid Carmichael right after the latter graduates from being a ninja.

* TheUnintelligible: Yuji "Cyclone" Noguchi only spoke in Japanese and relied on Bam to translate for him, he did however say one English sentence when he was pushed to by Tracer "Get out of my face Tracy".

* WrittenInInfirmity: Wanna know why [[spoiler: Jukido attacking Panther was entirely offscreen? During the filming of a fight in the first season, Erik Betts broke his hip when he landed on it the wrong way and had to leave the show.]]

** [[spoiler: Jukido also had a set of Mooks of their own, ninjas wearing red masks and sashes. They're first seen when Warlock sics four of them on Wizard to keep him quiet about their past in Jukido, and later he plants one in the crowd to fix his Dragon Star match with Red Dragon. Presumably they would have appeared more in season 3.]]

* ShowWithinAShow: All the in-ring action technically takes place in one, especially in the first season.