Crippling the Competition

"This is bowling. There are no rules."

"Once there was this girl who
Swore that one day she would be a figure skating champion
And when she finally made it
She saw some other girl who was better
And so she hired some guy to club her in the knee cap"

— "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Headline News" (see the Real Life folder for the incident this is referring to)

Sometimes someone is just too good at something. There is no way you can beat them at it. Or they have humiliated you once too often in their field of expertise. You decide to fix it so they can never beat you ever again.

Crippling the Competition is when someone, usually a villain, injures their rival to get the advantage. A Sub-Trope of Career-Ending Injury, Crippling the Competition is always a deliberate act done with malice and forethought. Can overlap with Game-Breaking Injury if it occurs during the final showdown.

Sometimes the opponent to the crippled competition isn't actually the one who did the deed and said opponent may not even have desired it. In these cases, the person responsible for crippling the competition generally is either a misguided fan trying to help, or a third party that stands to gain from a certain outcome of the match.

When applied to superpowered beings, this trope may lead to them being Brought Down to Normal.

Often overlaps with Fingore. Frequently leads to Throwing Off the Disability. A Sub-Trope of Removing the Rival. It's commonly the purpose of Unnecessary Roughness unless the roughness has no purpose and is just For the Evulz.

Different from Make an Example of Them, where in some cases the victim's punishment might deliberately target their ability to perform, but the motivation is not the fear of competition. For example, this trope would be a bunch of mobsters might break the legs of a championship marathon runner so the guy they're betting on will win, whereas, with Make an Example of Them, the mobsters break the marathon runner's legs because he failed to pay his gambling debts.

Note that in real life this can backfire, especially in team sports, where a player getting taken out can encourage their teammates to step up their game. Some coaches even tell their players to "punish them on the scoreboard" rather than physically retaliating.

Not to be confused with Blasting It Out of Their Hands. If the person being crippled attempts to compete or fight anyway, this may lead to You Can Barely Stand. And if the person tries to compete despite the attempted crippling, you can always Attack the Injury during the competition to make sure it pays off.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bleach:
  • During the fight between Uryu Ishida and the Soul Reaper Jirobo Ikkanzaka, Uryu fires an arrow into Jirobo in such a way as to prevent him from using spiritual pressure and thus making it impossible to continue as a Soul Reaper.
  • Uryu does the same thing to the arrancar Cirucci Sanderwicci, firing an arrow into her chest to seal off her power.
• Captain Tsubasa has some players who invoke this trope as much as possible in the soccer fields, with Makoto Souda as the most infamous example. It doesn't end well - for them.
• In Carole & Tuesday, while preparing backstage for the Mars Brightest semi-final, Tuesday is sent a package that turns out to contain liquid nitrogen, freeze-burning her hands and preventing her from playing her guitar. Angela suspects her assistant sent the package in an attempt at this trope and fires her. Subverted when the culprit (who wasn't Angela's assistant) turns out to have sent the package for reasons entirely unrelated to the competition.
• In Gunsmith Cats, Rally has a habit of shooting the hands (specifically the trigger fingers) of opposing gunmen. Some have come back looking for revenge because of their crippled hands.
• Ice Revolution: The slashed thigh that nearly ended Saaya's career is implied to have resulted from a skating rivalry gone bad similar to the Real Life Harding/Kerrigan affair. Subverted when we meet the so-called perpetrator and learn that it truly was an accident and she's still haunted by guilt.
• Major: Happens a few times in flashbacks, with players who intentionally injure their rivals in practice matches to get the title spots. Protagonist Goro Shigeno finds himself on the receiving end when Egashira orders his players to intentionally injure him during the Kaido vs. Seishuu match, as revenge for Goro not accepting to be Kaido's star like he wanted. While Kaido wins the match, Egashira is recorded gloating about it and gets fired for it.
• In Ping Pong: The Animation, Coach Koizumi shares a tale with Smile: In his youth, he ended up playing the finale of a tournament, which would have made his career, against his best friend. Said best friend had a hurt knee and Koizumi knew he could probably win if he intentionally kept playing towards that knee with the intent of overburdening it, but chose not to and therefore lost. In the climax of the anime Smile and Pedro are put against each other in the Big Game's finale, but Pedro hurt his knee in the quarter-finals. The last thing we see before the match is Smile telling Koizumi "I can do it". Cut to the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue and we learn he didn't.
• Pokémon: The Original Series: The episode "The Flame Pokèmon-Athon" depicts such a scenario; to increase his chances of winning an upcoming Pokémon race, a man named Dario hires Team Rocket to do this to his rival Lara Laramie, which they do by spooking her Ponyta, causing it to throw her off and break her arm. Ash is left to win the race in her stead, with Ponyta evolving into Rapidash in the process.
  • In The Electric Tale of Pikachu, this plotline is retained with one difference: Dario spooks said Ponyta and knocks Lara off of it himself.
• Ranma ½: Kodachi Kunō tries doing this to Ranma before their big match. However, Akane thwarts each effort. Ryōga also tries to beat up Ranma before the match, but the fight lasts the entire night without a winner.
• In The Rose of Versailles, Oscar shoots a guy's gun hand in a duel, as this is the only way she can punish him for shooting a peasant boy in cold blood.
• Early in Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin encounters a thug posing as Kenshin's old assassin persona and creating a lot of trouble. When he defeats the guy, Kenshin smashes his fingers with the hilt of his sword so that the thug will never be able to use a sword again. Also, early in his days of being a Technical Pacifist, Kenshin chopped off an opponent's arm instead of killing him. The opponent thought this was a deliberate Cruel Mercy (as opposed to killing him honorably), and comes back for revenge with an Arm Cannon.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!, before reaching Pegasus's island. Insector Haga/Weevil Underwood throws Yugi's Exodia cards off the ship to sabotage his chances of winning. He also does this to Jonouchi/Joey in the Battle City arc, sneaking a Parasite Paracide card into his deck. The latter becomes an inversion, as Jonouchi/Joey defeats Haga/Weevil's Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth, his strongest monster, by attacking it with that Parasite Paracide after using his dice cards.

Comic Books

• Combat Kelly and his Deadly Dozen: When Kelly refuses to throw his fight against the Nazi champion in #3, the Nazis rough him up and break his ribs, giving their boxer an easy target to aim for during the bout.
• In The Dark Knight Returns, it's strongly implied that Superman amputated Green Arrow's arm to force his former ally to abandon his vigilante activities. Subverted in that GA can still shoot his bow using his teeth to draw the string and gets a bionic arm in the sequel.
• In an issue of Hawkman, Green Arrow stops the villainous archer the Spider by shooting out the Spider's eye, destroying his ability to aim unless he manages to switch handedness.
• In Jonah Hex #11 (original series), a gambler Jonah caught cheating hires thugs to ambush Jonah and breaks his hands with a sledgehammer.
• Lands of Arran: In the Gladiator Games where the winner is declared Runelord, Rom has Redwin stabbed in the belly not long before the games, nearly killing him but still heavily crippling him too because he fears Redwin.
• In Robyn Hood, Cal King cuts out Robyn's left eye to destroy her ability as an archer.
• In a Thorgal comic, Thorgal and his friends, excellent bowmen taking part in an archery competition, are jumped by a group of thugs led by their competitor, who says that there's no need to kill them... just break their wrists.
• In an issue of The Winter Soldier, a bad guy arranges for a ballerina to suffer a leg injury in a car accident so that Black Widow can take her place as an understudy.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Priscilla Rich (Cheetah) enters a race held on Paradise Island in disguise, when she realizes Mala is catching up to her she messes with an obstacle to trip Mala as she passes by.

Comic Strips

• During a basketball game in Safe Havens the opposing team's coach instructed one of his players to injure Dave on the knee that had already been injured to take him out. Unfortunately for them, Dave (who for some context wore a visor and headphones at this point of his life) had recorded the whole conversation. Once he and Samantha exposed it, both player and coach got kicked out of the sport, with the coach having to pay damages to Dave as well. The injury didn't keep Dave out too long, but it contributed to the weakening of his ligaments, leading to the end of his NBA dreams when they finally snapped (while he scored the NCAA championship-winning point for Havens U, no less). He would eventually make a career in Europe (with a much less stressful schedule than the NBA would have required).

Eastern Animation

• In episode 3 of Rimba Racer Tag is whacked on the head with a wrench and spends a couple of days in the hospital but recovers in time for the next race, where he discovers that his car was sabotaged as well.

Fairy Tales

• In "The Grateful Beasts", Ferko's brothers think he's too good-looking and everyone takes a fancy to him; they will get on better without him. So they break his legs and put his eyes out before abandoning him.

Fan Works

• In the pro wrestling story, A Ring of Their Own, The Beautiful People attack Taylor Wilde in the locker room, making her unable to wrestle in the finals of the FWF Tag Team Title Tournament, making them the winners by default.
• In Run At The Cup, Landsman deliberately crashes into Vi during the RHL Finals, nearly inflicting a Career-Ending Injury on her. Played with as Landsman's real motivation was to make Caitlyn suffer, although taking out one of the Sumprats' star players was certainly a bonus..

Films — Live-Action

• In Blade Runner, Roy Batty breaks Deckard's fingers to hamper his ability to use his gun. Deckard starts using his other hand instead.
• In The Climax, Dr. Hohner initially hypnotises Angela so she will never sing again so that her voice can never outshine that of his beloved Marcellina. When the hypnosis fails, he tries to cut her tongue out.
• Coroner Creek: In an attempt to drive Chris out of town, Ernie has his thugs hold Chris while he beats him into unconsciousness, he lays Chris's gun hand on a log and stomps on it, breaking it.
• In Daredevil (2003), Bullseye's hands are injured in the climactic battle with Daredevil, and he says, "You took away my hands! Show mercy!"
• In Drop Zone, Moncrief's skydiving team sabotages the parachute rig of rival team leader Jess Crossman so that Moncrief's team can win the competition to qualify for the big exhibition jump. Moncrief also wants to neutralize Pete Nessip, the undercover US marshal who has joined Crossman's team.
• In Django, bandits ride over Django's hands with horses in retaliation for stealing gold from them.
• In A Fistful of Dollars, the bad guys stomp on Joe's hands while beating him.
• In Gladiator, Commodus restrains and stabs Maximus just prior to their final, climactic arena duel in order to gain the upper hand during the fight. It still isn't enough to hinder him.
• In Happy Gilmore, Shooter's psychotic and devoted fan hits Happy with a car during the final showdown. The injury doesn't prevent him from competing, but it does eliminate his incredible long shot, forcing Happy to rely more on the skills he's been developing for his short game.
• The Harder They Fall (1956): When one of Toro's opponents balks at Throwing the Fight and looks like he's going to beat Toro, his coach puts a chemical in his towel that disables him and allows Toro to win.
• In The Hustler (1961), "Fast Eddie" Felson has his thumbs broken by a pool shark who doesn't like being hustled.
• The Karate Kid gives one of the most famous examples when the evil instructor orders a student to intentionally injure Daniel's leg in the semi-finals match. This means the guy will be disqualified for an illegal hit, but injury prevents Daniel from facing the instructor's prize pupil in the actual Final Round, guaranteeing victory. The plan only fails because Mr. Miyagi has Healing Hands and Daniel has learned the iconic Crane Stance, which lets him keep his weight off the injured leg when the injury is aggravated in the finals. Notably, both Cobra Kai students are appalled at Kreese's order even if they go along with it.
• In King of Beggars, Chiu breaks So's legs, preventing him from ever using martial arts again.
• A Knight's Tale:
  • First discussed, then played with, then played straight:
    Count Adhemar: How would you beat him?
    Advisor: With a stick. While he slept. But on a horse, with a lance? That man is unbeatable.
  • Following this, Adhemar plays with the trope by striking at Will politically, exposing him as a false-knight so he can't compete. When that doesn't work (because Will actually gets knighted), Adhemar resorts to straight-up cheating by using actual pointed lances disguised as the tournament-legal blunted ones. The stabbing injury he inflicts on Will with one forces him to shed his armor and risk death to continue competing.
• Kung Fu Hustle: the Harpist manages to cut the palms of Donut, whose specialty is with staffs.
• In The Longest Yard, the warden of the prison orders a former football player named Crewe who has set up a "convicts vs. guards" game to give the guards a 21-point advantage or he will frame him for involvement in a murder. Essentially having no choice, Crewe agrees provided the warden will have the guards not injure the prisoners. The warden agrees, then double-crosses Crewe by later telling the head of the guards once they have a 21-point advantage to "inflict as much physical punishment on the prisoners as humanly possible."
• At the end of El Mariachi, the main antagonist shoots the mariachi's hand, preventing him from playing guitar.
• In D2: The Mighty Ducks, Wolf "The Dentist" Stanson whacks Gordon Bombay's bad leg, keeping Bombay from winning a game of three bar against him.
• Mr. Washington does this to the anti-heroine Alex in Momentum. Realising just how badass this particular Action Girl is, Washington stabs her in the leg to prevent her from running or fighting effectively. The wound leaves Alex physically crippled to the extent she's left with a limp. Washington's mistake is underestimating Alex's mental capacity - and since she's The Chessmaster extraordinaire that proves to be fatal.
• No Name on the Bullet: At the end of the film, Luke breaks Gant's shoulder with a thrown hammer; leaving him unable to draw a gun. Although Luke offers to treat the injury, Gant just rides off, saying "A lot of men want to kill John Gant. It took a healer with a hammer to make it easy for them."
• During The Piano Teacher, Erika is enraged at the sight of Walter flirting with one of her students that she goes so far as to fill the pockets of the girl's jacket with glass while it's in the cloakroom. The moment the poor student habitually jams her hands in her pockets, she's promptly cut to ribbons, preventing her from playing at an upcoming concert and giving Anna a chance to substitute.
• In The Quick and the Dead, Ratsy breaks Cort's right hand before his gunfight with Herod, forcing him to fight with his left hand.^note In a small twist, Herod did not order Ratsy to do this and gets PISSED when he finds out, declaring that Ratsy has ruined the gunfighting competition and then shooting him dead.
• Red Sparrow: In the opening of the film, Dominika, a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi, suffers a Career-Ending Injury when her danseur flubs a move. Her uncle, an SVR officer, informs her that the danseur did it on purpose because he was sleeping with Dominika's understudy. Dominika promptly goes back over to the Bolshoi and beats the crap out of them both with her cane, impressing Uncle Vanya enough that he recruits her to be an SVR operative.
• The 1933 John Wayne Western Riders Of Destiny has "Singing Sandy" Saunders get into a Showdown at High Noon with a gunslinger sent by the villain. He out-draws his opponent and shoots him through the wrist of his gun hand, then through the other wrist.
• In the 1949 Film Noir The Set-Up, a washed-up boxer wins a fight he was supposed to lose. The mobsters who put the fix on the fight retaliate by breaking his hand so he can never box again.
• In Shoot 'Em Up, Hertz tortures Smith by breaking his trigger fingers and then threatens to cut his eyes out. This ends very badly for Hertz.
• Sin City: A Dame to Kill For: After Johnny beats him at poker, Senator Roark breaks the fingers of his game hand with a pair of pliers. Shooting him in the knee is just an act of pure sadism.
• Starship Troopers is not a Western, but the same philosophy is shown in the film:
  Ace Levy: Sir, I don't understand. What good's a knife in a nuke fight? All you have to do is press a button, sir.
  Career Sergeant Zim: Put your hand on that wall, trooper. [Ace hesitates] PUT YOUR HAND ON THAT WALL! [Zim throws a knife and hits Ace's hand, pinning it to the wall] The enemy cannot press a button... if you have disabled his hand. Medic!

Note that his answer was completely different in the book.

• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace has champion podracer Sebulba "accidentally" bump another podracer, messing it up and making it unable to race.
• In Yojimbo, Sanjuro is beaten senseless for rescuing the family that Ushitora's gang was holding hostage.

Folklore

• A popular (but questionable) etymology for the profane variant of the V-Sign is that it came from archers taunting enemy soldiers who would cut off the middle and index fingers of any archers they captured (Welsh archers taunting Englishmen or English archers taunting Frenchmen tend to be the most common).
• Pecos Bill is often reputed to have shot off his opponents' trigger fingers in gunfights. He can be seen doing this in the movie Tall Tale.

Literature

• One of the 1632 novels had a violinist who had had his left hand crippled by a jealous rival.
• In All for the Game, Kevin's broken hand, expected to be a Career-Ending Injury, wasn't really from a skiing accident. It was actually Riko's fault.
• In the backstory of Assassin of Gor, a chess player was blinded by a powerful man whom he had beaten in a game. But he is still able to play because he can visualize the board.
• A rare heroic example occurs in Brian Daley's Han Solo's Revenge: after Han gets roped into a formal duel against the notorious gunslinger Gallandro, he conspires to stun both of their right hands. This forces Gallandro to concede since Solo is ambidextrous and Gallandro isn't.
• Just prior to the final battle of The Magicians, the Beast tips the odds a little further in his favour by biting off Penny's hands before the fighting starts. As spells are dependent on complex gestures, this leaves the Physical Kids' most experienced battle-magician out of the fight - a fact that the Beast openly gloats about.
• In Jules Verne's Michel Strogoff, the eponymous character is blinded by having his eyes exposed to a heated iron by his foes.
• In the backstory of Neuromancer, the main character was a hacker who was caught stealing and punished by being given a treatment that destroyed his ability to interface with the matrix.
• In Ratcatcher, Hawkwood gets in a Ten Paces and Turn duel with a young bravo. After his opponent misses, Hawkwood deliberately aims and shoots to cripple his gun arm and prevent him from fighting any further duels.
• The Scholomance: The competition for Valedictorian is so fierce that back in the old days, candidates were willing to resort to murder to take out their rivals. The school remedied this by having the rankings only posted at the end of the first semester of a class's senior year so that way none of those in the running would know who was at the front of the pack until it was too late to matter. However, while that stopped most of the killing, it didn't prevent candidates from regularly sabotaging each others' work. These days, the best way to make it Valedictorian is to make sure no one knows you're going for it.
• A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones: Jamie Lannister, one of the top swordsmen in the Seven Kingdoms has his hand cut off by Vargo Hoat.
• The "Waxahachie Smith" series by J.T. Edson is about a gunfighter who had his trigger fingers amputated by vengeful foes.

Live-Action TV

• On 30 Rock, Jenna (a narcissist of the highest order) becomes convinced her co-star is going to try to take her out to take on her part and so begins "preemptive actions" that border on criminal assault. That Jenna is A)not even the lead role and B) playing the woman's mother never enters her mind.
  • Liz's reaction indicates this is a common thing as Jenna seems to believe anyone is out to "steal my spotlight" even when she's cast as a nameless extra.
• In the Angel episode "Supersymmetry" Fred is ecstatic to publish her paper on superstring theory. Even better is that she's being overseen by Oliver Seidel, her old college professor who she's praised for helping her out. During her presentation, a portal opens and nearly pulls Fred in. Fred realizes that not only is Seidel responsible but he's also the one who opened the portal that caused Fred to spend five years in the demon dimension of Pylea. Worse is Fred going through the records to see that almost every year, one or two very promising students have vanished without a trace and realizes to her horror that Seidel is getting rid of anyone who's smarter than him for fear they'll end up taking his job. Needless to say, her reaction is a grand combination of Broken Pedestal and Murder Is the Best Solution.
• Beverly Hills, 90210. Incensed when Brenda gets the lead in the school play, her rival first starts rumors that she used the Casting Couch to get the part, then suggests to her boyfriend that he physically harm her so that she'll have to give it up.
• In an episode of Bones the Victim of the Week had done this to himself shortly before he was killed: he slammed his right hand with a desk drawer to break it, in order to remove the temptation of going to a music school to study piano.
• In an episode of Coach the Orlando Breakers are in Buffalo to play the Bills when Luther accepts a dinner of Buffalo Wings from a bar/restaurant called "Buffalo Billy's." The entire team comes down with food poisoning and Coach Fox has to draft anyone he can find to fill the uniforms. Afterward, Luther goes back to "Billy's" and asks the owner if it was intentional. The owner says no, but isn't too convincing about it.
• Cold Case:
  • In "Disco Inferno", Sonya promised sexual favors to Paul if he disabled Benny long enough so she can win the disco dancing contest. Paul instead kills Benny and burns down the disco to cover up the crime, which kills 22 other people.
  • In "Wilkommen", Nora tries to get Clinton to disable Dennis so she could be the one who will be noticed by the big time celebrity agent who will be in the audience. Clinton refuses, but Lyle overhears the plan and goes through with it so he can replace Dennis. He instead kills Dennis.
• In Flesh and Bone someone involved with the American Ballet Company tries to do this to Claire by putting broken glass in her pointe shoes. Word of God says it was the company's artistic director Paul. Ironically, not to harm her, but to get the best performance possible. Fortunately, they have underestimated her new-found drive to overcome her series-long Trauma Conga Line.
• Highlander: The Series: Spanish Immortal Otavio Consone taught Flamenco dancing to a woman named Anna Hidalgo, whom he hoped to marry. But when Anna revealed that she loved another man and was carrying his child, a furious Consone murdered Anna's lover and ran her down with a car, crippling her for life and ending her dancing career.
• Subverted in a Law & Order episode based on the Tonya-Nancy saga. When a tennis player's wrist is broken, suspicion falls on her rival. It turns out that the girls were actually friends and arranged the attack because she wanted to quit but knew that her Sports Dad wouldn't let her otherwise.
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent: In "Delicate", a ballerina is suffering the lingering effects of an injury she sustained from a shard of broken glass in her shoe. It eventually turns out that the glass was put there deliberately by another girl in the class who was obsessed with the dancer's rival. (The rival herself had no idea about any of this until after it happened and was horrified when she found out, though not to the point where she actually did anything about it.)
• Leverage: In "The Studio Job", an unscrupulous record producer breaks both hands of a songwriter who used to work for him so the man can never play an instrument again.
• Murdoch Mysteries: In "Hot Wheels of Thunder", prior to the roller races, an assault on Miss Palmer ends her skating career.
• The Tonya Harding case is parodied in an episode of Seinfeld. Jerry is dating Bette Midler's understudy in a stage production of Rochelle, Rochelle. When George and Jerry accidentally injure Midler in a celebrity softball game, forcing Jerry's girlfriend into the role, New Yorkers accuse Jerry of injuring her intentionally.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In "Mr. Denton on Doomsday", the title character Al Denton, a washed-up Retired Gunfighter faces off against a young wannabe named Pete Grant in a duel, both using a potion granting quick draw abilities. Both men manage to inflict hand injuries preventing each other from ever using guns again. Denton sees this as a blessing, as it will prevent either from engaging in any more reckless duels.
• Wanted: Dead or Alive: In "The Bounty", a ruthless bounty hunter, feared for the speed of his shooting, is pursued by a band of Apache seeking for an old man he had killed. Rather than killing him, they cut off his right thumb, removing his ability to cock a hammer one-handed and thus destroying his speed as a gunslinger.

Pro Wrestling

• A very regular occurrence, usually where the heel will attack his face opponent before a big match to gain the upper hand.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering has hundreds of cards that reduce another card (or even player's) effectiveness without defeating them outright. For the most part, cards with the "Aura" subtype that aren't meant to be played on one's own cards do this. This is also thematically common on the same cards, perhaps best exemplified by the flavor text of Forced Worship, a card that makes a creature unable to attack:
  Imprisonment teaches revenge. Hobbling teaches resignation.

Video Games

• A self-inflicted example from Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura: William Thorndop, formerly the world's greatest marksman, has taken a vow of non-violence, and cut off his own trigger fingers to make sure he can never hold a firearm again.
• Throughout the Fallout series, you can use target shots to aim at enemy body parts. Shooting the eyes or head lowers their accuracy, shooting the arms may prevent them from using certain weapons, and shooting the legs lowers movement speed.
• A self-inflicted example in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance; late in the game, it's revealed that Ike's father Greil had crippled his own arm so that he could never use his sword again—as atonement for slaughtering a great number of people (including his beloved wife Elena) while under the influence of a certain pendant (which only said wife could hold without succumbing to its influence).
• The first-two of Chan Jaoming's mission in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars involve this.
  • His first mission tasks Huang to find a champion racer's car and sabotage it so that his (incredibly flashy) car can get an advantage in an upcoming race.
  • In the following mission, Huang has to ram the other opposing racers so that Chan can win the 1st place as, despite the champion racer's demise (thanks to the aforementioned sabotage earlier), he is too sloshed to even race properly. Huang paraphrases this best during the respective mission's replay description.
    "Chan's idea of fair play is, 'anything goes, so long as he wins'."
• Inverted in Golden Sun, where instead of using Psynergy to preemptively defeat Colosso competitors, you use it to give Isaac an unfair advantage by using non-combat abilities to make the obstacle course section easier (such as moving a log to form a bridge, creating a vine ladder, blocking a conveyor belt mechanism, etc.).
• In Jade Empire, an early sidequest requires you to heal an injured fellow student so she can take part in a competition against you. The Open Palm choice is to get her a medicine that actually heals her, but if you prefer the Closed Fist, you can give her an ointment that only removes the pain, resulting in her starting the fight with much less health and ending up crippled for life. For extra adherence to the Closed Fist ideology (one of the few cases when it's actually used correctly), you can reveal to her what you did afterward, and tell her that relying on you made her weak - she should have dealt with her problem on her own.
• In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, during Chapter 3 (the Boxing Episode of the game), at one point someone sends you a poisoned cake just before you start a fight. If you fall for the Schmuck Bait, you're forced to fight the next battle alone, without any of your partners. (Ignore it, and a different fighter is crippled by the poisoned cake instead.) It turns out to be the work of the champion, Rawk Hawk, in response to a perceived slight against him by your character.
• In Shining Song Starnova, Mariya mentions that trainee Idol Singers would sabotage their rivals by sticking thumbtacks in their shoes during her time with Quasar. A major incident of this takes place in Nemu’s route, where an increasingly paranoid and jealous Nemu topples a heavy metal shelf onto Starnova’s newest recruit Kaori, breaking the poor girl’s ankle and ending her career.
• A reference is made to the Nancy Kerrigan incident in the 'Real Life' folder below in a sidequest in Spyro: Year of the Dragon, in which a polar bear with a Canadian accent named Nancy is attacked by Rhynoc hockey players as she attempts to rehearse for an ice dancing performance, and enlists Spyro to protect her from them. It's not clear if the Rhynocs were doing this on behalf of another dancer or if they were just being bullies, however.

Web Comics

• In Cuanta Vida, this turns out to be the modus operandi of the Big Bad, Rojo. The fighters at 2Fort are replaced whenever one is killed, so he decides that the only way to win the Forever War is to disable the enemy non-lethally... but permanently.

Web Originals

• Sticks to the Wall, a parody of spaghetti westerns, opens with it.
• The Dorkly Originals short "Who's Faster: Superman or The Flash?" has Superman and The Flash getting ready for a foot race, until Supes shoots Flash in his leg, worried that his "faster than a speeding bullet" powers would get outpaced by Flash's light-speed.

Western Animation

• In the American Dad! episode "Next of Pin", Stan shivs Steve in the ankle to prevent him from winning a bowling competition, as Stan was worried that if Steve won it would drive them further apart.
• In an episode of Cow and Chicken, the Red Guy injures Chicken's ice skating partner Earl, a direct Shout-Out to the Harding-Kerrigan fiasco.
• The Fairly OddParents! has the episode "Miss Dimmsdale." Vicky sabotages the other contestants by injuring them so she can sashay her way to victory, claim her $10000 and mayor-for-a-day prizes, and enslave every single child in the city, including Timmy. She would have claimed them had it not for Mr. Turner's interference and Dark Horse Victory. Of course, Vicky receives a well-deserved beating from the unfairly eliminated contestants.
• Futurama:
  • Bender drugs a bunch of racehorses (and a jockey who caught him) so the only one he hasn't drugged will win and net him a big payoff.
  • It's also used against Bender in an episode where he's entered a tap-dancing competition and his opponent busts up one of his kneecaps.
• In the Batman Beyond episode Black Out, Derek Powers hires Inque to sabotage competitor Foxteca, by oozing herself into computers and machines to damage them.
• In the Kim Possible episode "Showdown at the Crooked D", Dr. Drakken envies the intelligence of the world's leading scientists, so he invents Silly Hats for them to wear that make them act like doofuses.
• In the Little Einsteins episode "The Great Sky Race Rematch", Big Jet destroys Rocket's flight button to prevent him from beating him again.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Flight to the Finish", Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon emotionally cripple Scootaloo so that they can win a contest to carry the flag at the Equestrian Games instead of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Notably, their insults are more biting and hurtful, something they acknowledged because their usual throwing of the "blank flank" slur wasn't working anymore.
• On Robot Chicken Sinestro (accidentally) cuts off both of Green Lantern's hands. Green Lantern counters by finding someplace else to wear his ring.
• The Simpsons: In "Team Homer", Mr. Burns forces his way onto Homer's bowling team (for which he was tricked into writing a $500 check), the team is disgusted at the old man's complete ineptitude but cannot simply kick him off. Moe hatches a plan to bash in his knee with a lead pipe so he can't play. Unfortunately, he does so when Burns is already indisposed and his whack on the knee has the exact opposite effect: the injured Burns is able to play again.
• One of the villains of the week in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) is Mephos, an Avian who was punished for crimes against his race by having the wings torn from his back and being forced to live as a human.

Real Life

• Figure skater Tonya Harding's then-husband Jeff Gillooly hired someone to attack her rival Nancy Kerrigan with a metal police baton. The extent of Harding's own involvement remains debatable. The episode would later be immortalized (with some embellishments) in I, Tonya.
• A journalist asked former tennis player Rod Laver (a contender for the Greatest of All Time title) how he would go about beating then-current player Roger Federer (another contender) if they had been professional at the same time. Laver replied, "Hit him over the head with a tennis raquette."
• Also in tennis, an obsessive Steffi Graf fan infamously stabbed her rival Monica Seles during a match in 1993.
• Twenty-seven members of the New Zealand national rugby team developed food poisoning two days before the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, where they were to play host nation South Africa. Legend has it, it was a deliberate act by a mysterious waitress called "Suzie".
• During the Cold War, the Soviets were known to punish turbulent priests by cutting off their hands, since that was the only disability that disqualifies one from sanctifying the Eucharist.
• Also during the Cold War, specifically the Summit Series between the Soviet Union's Red Army hockey team and the NHL's top Canadian stars, Bobby Clarke famously broke Soviet star player Valeri Kharlomov's ankle with a slash. An assistant coach had called Clarke to the bench prior and suggested Kharlamov "needs a tap on the ankle."
• Mutilation was a popular way to deal with political opponents in the Byzantine Empire. The underlying logic was that, as God's worldly representative, The Emperor was supposed to be physically unblemished. Castration was a popular method (especially because it prevented a rival from producing heirs), as were Eye Scream and Facial Horror.
• A famous example of this backfiring was in the 1989 VFL Grand Final.^note VFL = Victorian Football League; it would change its name to the current Australian Football League the next year. At the start of the game, Geelong's Mark Yeates charged Hawthorn's Dermott Brereton, knocking him down and puncturing his lung, in what Geelong coach Malcolm Blight later admitted was a premeditated plan. However, Brereton got back up and played on, inspiring his team. Hawthorn ended up winning.
• The "Bountygate" scandal in the National Football League involved defensive coordinator Greg Williams of the New Orleans Saints placing bounties on opposing players to encourage his players to deliberately injure said opponents.

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