World Martial Arts Tournament

World Martial Arts Tournament
This is the annual tournament held on Earth for all to come and enjoy. All of the worlds best fighters come here to prove their worth. Also all the fans and sponcerships going around the place could make you a famous person indeed. If this is what your aiming for then aim high and train hard. You just might make it to the top and win the million zeny prize.

Tournament Rules
In the tournament, anyone who comes into contact outside of the ring, is knocked out for more than ten seconds (which is counted by the commentator), or gives up, automatically loses. The tournament forbids any use of weapons or protective body gear (although natural weapons, such as bear claws, are allowed). Poking someone in the eyes or hitting them in the groin is also not allowed. The most important rule is that killing the opponent is not allowed. Disobeying any of these rules results in disqualification from the tournament. However, more than one villain in the manga has entered the tournament with more interest in killing someone against whom they have a vendetta than in winning the prize.



The tournament has two parts: the preliminaries and the tournament itself, although this changed significantly in the later tournaments. The preliminaries are held indoors and without an audience. In the preliminaries, all the contestants are divided in several groups, usually eight (after the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament, more contestants than ever have started entering). These eight groups fight in mini-tournaments with a one-minute time limit for each match (matches that last longer than one minute are decided by points). The eight winners, one of each group, move on to the actual tournament.

The participants fight in pairs; the order of the fights is decided by each participant taking a random number from a box. As there are usually eight participants, the tournament has three levels: quarter-finals (4 fights), semi-finals (2 fights), and the final fight.The winner of each fight goes on to fight with the winner of the other fights, with a tree diagram showing the order of the fighters, going up on the aforementioned levels, ultimately leading to the final bout to determine the champion.