Tournament of Champions is a Food Network series hosted by Guy Fieri. In each season, a single-elimination bracket of the top competition chefs in the country go head-to-head in contests with randomly-selected key elements, judged blind by highly-respected chefs. The winner receives a Briefcase Full of Money and a big, gaudy championship belt in the style of a boxing or wrestling championship.
Season one began airing in March 2020, and seasons have followed every February or March. The first two seasons had 16-contestant brackets, East vs. West; since then, there have been 32-contestant brackets, East A and B and West A and B. There have been play-in rounds on TOC itself or on Guy's Grocery Games, and many TOC competitors have been on that show as contestants, judges, or both.
One key element to the show is the Randomizer, a set of five wheels spun before each battle. The exact wheels vary by season and round, but for most rounds in the first three seasons, the wheels are Protein, Produce, Equipment, Style, and Time. The fourth season replaces the Time wheel with a Wild Card wheel that may allow one or more wheels to be re-spun; the fifth season turns the Wild Card wheel into wild card ingredients in the first round, while the second round returns to re-spins.
Due to the blind judging, the contestants cannot describe their dishes to the judges, so Simon Majumdar and Justin Warner watch the chefs cook in order to present the dishes. The judges are typically highly-respected chefs such as Nancy Silverton and Jonathan Waxman. Dishes are scored based on taste (50 points), execution and use of the Randomizer (30 points for the first 4 seasons, 40 points for season 5), and presentation (20 points for the first 4 seasons, 10 points for season 5). Chefs and judges are sequestered so that the judges do not even know who is competing until the tournament is complete, and the chefs do not know who will be judging their food until the judging begins.
Not to be confused with the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions or Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.
Tropes found in Tournament of Champions include:
- Affectionate Nickname: With his tendency to be The Nicknamer and an over-the-top announcing style reminiscent of a prize fight, Guy tends to give every contestant a nickname of some sort. Some are based on their name (Brooke Williamson is "Chef B-Dub"), and some on aspects of their cooking and/or personality (Mauneet Chauhan is "The Dancing Spice Queen").
- Audience Participation: The Wild Card added in season four includes options like "audience re-spin" where the audience gets to decide which wheel to re-spin.
- Briefcase Full of Money: The $100,000 ($150,000 in Season 5) grand prize is displayed in one of these.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak: Brooke Williamson's loss in the Season 2 final was the first time she'd ever lost on the show, ending a seven-match winning streak. To date, no one has matched it.
- Commercial Break Cliffhanger: All but the last round in any given show will have Guy announce the scores without saying who they belong to, then cut to commercial before he says who won. (The final round doesn't generally do this, presumably because the show is about to end anyway.)
- Cooking Duel: Every round is a one-on-one cooking contest between two top chefs.
- Food Porn: The judging round includes lovingly-filmed shots of each dish.
- Large Ham: Guy plays his announcer role like he's introducing a boxing or wrestling match, giving biographic details about each chef as they walk toward the arena.
- Loophole Abuse: The required kitchen utensil must be used. It doesn't necessarily need to be used as intended. At least once, it's been used as a source of smoke flavoring by setting it on fire. That said, an egregious attempt to ignore the utensil (such as only using it as part of the plating) will get marked down by the judges.
- Made of Iron: In Season 3, up against the clock, Madison Cowan picked up his hot pans in his bare hands to bring them over to the table...and it wasn't enough, he didn't have anything on the table in time. His dish was disqualified.
- New Rules as the Plot Demands: In season four, a really good Randomizer result came up with a Wild Card of "complete re-spin". The chefs asked to keep it, and Guy stated that the audience could override the re-spin if they wanted, which they did.
- The Nicknamer: Guy loves giving contestants Affectionate Nicknames as part of his Large Ham announcer persona.
- Press Hat: While he doesn't have the press pass in the hatband, Simon Majumdar often wears this sort of hat while taking notes, leading Guy to call him "Scoop Majumdar".
- Random Number God: The Randomizer. Five wheels of items that may or may not go well together, and the chef has to somehow make it work. Chefs learn quickly not to say out loud what they don't want, as the Randomizer is always willing to provide it.
- Redemption Quest: Many competitors who have lost in earlier seasons feel a need to redeem themselves by winning it all. A notable example is Jet Tila, who has reached the semifinals for three years in a row but never made it further.
- Running Gag: Guy carries over his love of hiding the "Go" instruction from Guy's Grocery Games.Guy: We don't do the 'three, two, one, go' thing here. (Both contestants realize he said 'go' and rush off.)
- Speak of the Devil: Contestants who have been on the show before know better than to say they don't want a particular thing to come up on the Randomizer, because that seems to guarantee that it will come up.
- Studio Audience: The competition takes place in front of a small live studio audience, with occasional Audience Participation.
- Tiebreaker Round: There are tiebreaker rules to avoid it, but if the two contestants have absolutely identical scores in all categories, they compete in a new round to break the tie. This has happened once, with two contestants tying at 93note with identical subscores, and proceeding to compete again with one contestant edging out the other by one point, 92-91.
- This Is Gonna Suck: A common reaction to particular Randomizer results, whether due to ingredients that don't go together, ingredients that need more time than the contestants have, kitchen tools that the chefs don't typically use, or styles that don't match anything else on the Randomizer.
- Unperson: Darnell Ferguson was omitted from the first episode of Season 5 (not even having his match against Amanda Freitag announced as the bracket was read out) after his indictment on domestic violence charges. When the match was aired, his airtime was minimized and he wasn't given a post-match interview after his loss.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Jet Tila's response to the first Randomizer that included molecular gastronomy compounds: "Worst. Randomizer. Ever."
- Worthy Opponent: The chefs generally give off this attitude toward each other. In particular, Michael Voltaggio was beaten by Brooke Williamson in the first three seasons, making him want to beat her even more.
