Despite Dragon Ball having multiple Tournament Arcs, the Z-Warriors and their enemies will also not let go of any opportunity to win.
- Goku would occasionally fight like this.
- The "scissor" move of his Rock Scissors 'n' Paper technique was eye-gouging and sometimes he'd use this technique by pretending to use one move and instead using another one (shouting "paper" and using "rock" instead, for example). He also resisted Tien's Solar Flare technique by wearing Master Roshi's sunglasses.
- He escapes from being strangled by Frieza by biting the latter's tail. He also bites Kid Buu when he was fighting him as a Super Saiyan 3, but this time it was mostly played for comedy (Kid Buu bites him first). He also bit King Piccolo's thumb in their first fight.
- Possibly his first act of playing this trope in DBZ was when he shot an energy blast at Great Ape Vegeta's eye.
- Before then, he planned to defeat his brother Raditz by grabbing his tail (which is incredibly painful for Saiyans).
- Invokes the trope again during his fight with Recoome where he defeats Recoome with a single elbow to the stomach, but did it while Recoome was powering up to perform a technique. Goku even lampshades this after the fight is over:
Goku: I saw an opening that screamed attack... so I did. - He punches Jeice square in the nose while he was still talking.
- Vegeta has no problem with dirty fighting either.
- During his second fight with Zarbon he notices his opponent is still somewhat stronger... So he throws sand in Zarbon's eyes to temporarily blind him. Before Zarbon can recover, Vegeta rabbit-punches him, breaking his armour and causing a Game-Breaking Injury that allows Vegeta to gain the upper hand and inflict a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Vegeta defeats Guldo when the latter is distracted attempting to kill Krilin and Gohan. Guldo blames Vegeta of cheating but Vegeta has a proper response:Vegeta: There's no such thing as fair or unfair in battle. There is only victory or, in your case, defeat.
- He breaks Burter's neck and vaporizes Recoome while they're defeated and unconscious so they don't get the chance to come back for revenge.
- King Piccolo is also this. He immediately kills Chiaotzu when he tries to sabotage King Piccolo's quest for immortality by making his wish to Shenron before Piccolo does. He also checks Goku's pulse before confirming he is dead in their first battle, and when Goku is overpowering him in his next fight he uses Tien as an Human Shield and takes advantage of Goku's hesitation to break his legs. He's a Magnificent Bastard for a reason and the only villain to ever outright win.
- Piccolo penetrates Goku with his Breath Weapon when the latter is distracted by the thought of victory, right before the Combat Commentator could say "10".
- Should he find himself in trouble, Frieza will just blow up the planet. After all, he can breathe in space but his opponents cannot.
- Future Trunks, bless him, he tries to fight according to "common sense". He does have a sense of honor, but that's for friendly sparring matches or tournament bouts only; when it comes to saving innocent lives, he'll do whatever works. Unfortunately for him, he's in a Shōnen series. That said, when he is stronger than his opponent, it does not last long. Future Trunks is not interested in a fair fight, holding back, or challenges. This is justified as a byproduct of the Bad Future he grew up in. It's seen clearly against Frieza. Instead of letting him power up to 100% as Goku did, he cut him in half, the minute he is distracted. (In the manga at least.)
- He's also the only one who thinks of attacking Cell during his Transformation Sequence. It doesn't work (apparently transforming generates a heck of ki barrier), but points for trying.
- The poor kid finally manages to win using his pragmatism. Several years after the defeat of the Future Androids and Cell, Babidi and Dabura (eventually) reach Earth to revive Buu. Trunks, given a few tips and special training by the Supreme Kai, fights them immediately without dwindling for time and nonsense babbling (for which Buu was successfully revived in the present timeline), killing Babidi and Dabura swiftly and ensuring Majin Buu's dormancy (though not without the loss of Supreme Kai and the Old Kai, triggering a certain event not too long after.) And he also destroys Babidi's ship for good measure, ensuring no one else will come following after him.
- Adult Gohan in Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn deserves a special mention, at one point in the movie he and Videl are faced with most of the resurrected Rogues Gallery who have escaped from Hell and are led by Frieza (in his final form). Gohan could go One-Man Army and endanger himself and Videl against the overwhelming numbers but instead the moment Frieza orders his army to attack, Gohan flies straight to Frieza himself and one shots him quicker than Trunks did. Since most of the army are members of the Frieza Force they freak out at the easy demise of their Emperor and flee from Gohan.
- Krillin has been a downright dirty fighter from the beginning, using a pair of panties as a distraction against Jackie Chun/Master Roshi, asking Chiaotzu basic math questions to disrupt his psychic powers, and attempting to exploit Goku's Achilles' Heel by grabbing his tail during their fight in the tournament. It's turned up to eleven in Z, where he takes on foes many times stronger than him with just his guts and sneaky, underhanded tactics. And he is utterly unapologetic about it, as seen in the "Tien Shinhan Arc":
- Son Goku: That was dirty...!
Krillin: Dirty doesn't mean shit in a fight!
- Mr. Satan. During tournaments he fights fair... As in, he limits the strength of the kicks in the nape (how he beat Spopovich at the 24th Tenkaichi). Outside tournaments he starts with potentially lethal moves, following up with strikes to all weak spots in a body. Just too bad he demonstrated it on Cell, who was just so more powerful than him he didn't even notice...
- Mr. Satan taught Videl everything he knows about martial arts-and it shows: when she fought a Majin-empowered Spopovich in the 25th Tenkaichi, she started with a kick in the face followed by a beating that should have defeated him then and there had he still been a normal human, and when he came back for more she went all-out... And broke his neck without even realizing what she was going to do. Too bad he could survive that...
- During the Universe Survival Arc of Dragon Ball Super, due to the nature of the competition being a Battle Royale with the only rule for elimination being ringed-out, many characters take advantage of the quickest eliminations they can see openings for. This is particularly true for the competitors who would normally be outclassed in raw strength.
- Krillin rings out a blind opponent who relies on scent by throwing his shoe, confusing him.
- Android 18 gets two eliminations by simply picking up and tossing the competitors when they use defensive strategies that limit their mobility.
- Master Roshi relies on an arsenal of unconventional skills to help him ring out several competitors, even those that are stronger than him, by way of things like paralysis, hypnotism, and the Evil Containment Wave.
- A good number of Universe 4's fighters are this, lacking actual fighting skills and trying to overcome opponents via trickery. Xiangca could create illusions of other fighters, Gamisalas was an invisible man, and Damom was a bug-man who used his large Power Level in combination with his tiny size to confuse his opponents.
- Gohan and Frieza demonstrate this in their battle with Dyspo. As Dyspo, at full speed, is too fast for either of them to catch, Gohan instead has Frieza create a massive dome of energy beams over himself and Dyspo, essentially trapping the two in an electric fence. Gohan put himself at an especially dangerous risk here, as the beams hurt him as well as Dyspo. In the end, Frieza tires out just as Gohan's about to finish Dyspo, so Gohan, in a scene evocative of his own father's sacrifice to defeat Raditz, restrains Dyspo from behind so Frieza can take him out.
- Frieza has no qualms about attacking Toppo from behind while he and Android 17 are caught in a Beam-O-War.
- Goku and Frieza in the climax of the tournament exploit the rules, combining their strength to push Jiren out of bounds just to “defeat” him as he was literally too strong to overpower normally. This worked out well since despite Goku and Frieza being eliminated Android 17 was still in the therefore the de-facto winner.
- A group of Magical Girl parodies from Universe 2 get blasted by Android 17 when attempting a Transformation Sequence because he sees it as a huge opening. However, they survive the attack and after getting chewed out for interrupting 17 lets them finish their transformation. It should be pointed out that the Tournament is also meant to entertain the watching Zen-Ohs, who at one point allowed Master Roshi's use of the Mafuba despite it technically making use of an outside item (in this case a bottle) simply because it looked interesting, and so 17's pragmatic attack risked drawing their ire. That and Goku only really objects because he wanted to see what the transformation looked like.
