History Main / TournamentArc

** The UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor and UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance iterations of ''VideoGame/MarioGolf'' are golf RolePlayingGames where the entire plot entails the player entering golf tournaments, with the hopes of being invited to a tournament held in the Mushroom Kingdom and a chance to surpass Mario himself.

* The Hunter Exam and the Heaven's Arena arcs from ''Manga/HunterXHunter''. However, the final stage of this exam is a subversion of the more typical TournamentArc in several ways: the winners don't advance to see who is the only one to pass, the ''losers'' advance to see who is the only one who doesn't, you can't just beat up or kill your opponent, you have to convince/coerce/force them to surrender without killing them (or you're disqualified and everyone else passes), and [[spoiler:it's ended only five matches through when Killua kills one of the other contests (it isn't even his fight).]]

* ''WebAnimation/DungeonDynamite'' Invokes this in Episode 5 with the city of [[IncrediblyLamePun Tournament *Ark*, a lawless, fight-happy desert city marked by the presence of a large, broken boat.]] Needless to say, the plot demands that the protagonists fight in a tournament [[spoiler: to obtain 1 million gold pieces of the local currency for the sake of getting Five out of her magical contract. Also, the King’s Knight, Rook, and Bishop are all taking place for the chance to kill the protagonists as well....]]

** The second Tournament that appears are the Cell Games; however, the format is rather different: each opponent takes on the founder, Cell, and if they are all defeated he [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroys the Earth]]. It turns out to be a farce however, as Cell uses it more to flaunt his seemingly bottomless power to the heroes and later destroys the ring when he's put in a bind.

-->-- '''Dr. Oobleck''', ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', "Round One"

See also RescueArc, WarArc, NotJustATournament. Compare TheBigRace.

* One arc of Franchise/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist'' revolves around a contest between the Seven Cities Of Heaven and their "immortal weapons" (the individual weapons, such as Iron Fist, Fat Cobra, and the Prince of Orphans are not immortal, but the position is). They don't compete for the prize; they compete not to lose, each city only appearing on Earth once every ten years...while the loser of the tournament's city can only appear once every fifty. [[spoiler: The tournament ends up being played very differently than you might expect - starting with TheHero ''losing'' in the first round, and to a completely new character rather than his rival Davos.]]

* DC had ''Arena''. The ''ComicBook/MarvelVersusDC'' crossover could also count as a tournament arc.
* ''ComicBook/AvengersArena'' was a Battle Royale-like survival game orchestrated by Arcade, putting teen heroes against each other.
* The basic structure of the first arc of ''ComicBook/WizardsOfMickey'' with the second arc being Mickey's fights against the Blot after winning the tourney.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' has the storyline "Champions", which adapts ''VideoGame/SonicTheFighters'' in the middle of its ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' storyline.
* In the [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Golden Age]] and ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' Franchise/WonderWoman earns the right to be the champion and ambassador of the Amazons and their TechnicalPacifist accepting and loving ideology through a tournament where she proves herself against the other Amazons competing for the position.
** ''[[ComicBook/WonderWomanNumberOne The Origin of Wonder Woman]]'': The first full telling of the contest involves Diana hiding her identiy behind her entry number (7) and a DominoMask, fighting a series of quirky Amazons and then facing off against her friendly rival Mala for the right to become the Amazon Champion.

* Rikidozan's Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance held several tournaments that were influential in the business, the most notable being the World Big League (later renamed to simply World League),an annual tournament where wrestlers from all over the world participated making it the closest thing to a ''World Cup of Wrestling'' at the time, featuring big name participants throughout the years ranging from Rikidozan himself, his students Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba, Lou Thesz, Gene Kiniski, Freddie Blassie, The Destroyer, Abdullah The Butcher and Gorilla Monsoon. JWA held the tournament from 1959 until 1972 as the JWA folded in 1973. It had been one of the most important pro-wrestling tournament of its time, because it was one of the very few (and for some years after its creation the only) pro-wrestling tournaments of its time to be considered representative of the entire pro-wrestling world.

** Both the first WWE World title holder Buddy Rogers and the first Intercontinental Champion Pat Patterson were claimed by the promotion to have won them in tournaments in Rio de Janerio. The question of if either tournament even happened is up for debate.
** ''Wrestlemania IV'' played host to a tournament to determine a new WWF Champion after the title was vacated as a result of crooked officiating. Wrestling/RandySavage would win the tournament.

** The Wrestling/KingOfTheRing, originally held in June, was once one of the company's main pay per view events. It fizzled out after 2003.
** The 1998 and 2015 editions of Wrestling/SurvivorSeries held one to determine who will win the vacant WWF/E Championship. It was respectively won by [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] and Wrestling/RomanReigns, who ironically are cousins[[note]]not biologically, as their respective grandfathers were blood brothers[[/note]] who also happened to defeat celebrated {{Garbage Wrestler}}s in the finals ([[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] and Wrestling/DeanAmbrose, respectively). Unfortunately, in the latter instance, Roman lost the belt in a screw-job at the hands of the Authority and Sheamus, rending the tournament all for nothing.