I Know Madden Kombat

Often seen in fighting games, this trope is about characters whose fighting styles either use tactics from or are based on non-combat sports. This does not include those who just use sporting equipment as bludgeoning weapons (for instance, Batter Up and Golf Clubbing). It comes as no surprise that many of these characters are athletes.

Part of the trope name comes from former football player, coach, and commentator John Madden, who has a line of successful football video games.

This is the inverse of Martial Arts and Crafts, where combat skills are adapted to non-combat activities. If the sport is gymnastics or cheerleading, see She Fu. See also I Know Mortal Kombat, Dance Battler and Wrestler in All of Us, where the fighting style is based on Professional Wrestling.

Advertising

 * Nike loves this trope.

Anime and Manga

 * Shibuya Yuuri from Kyou Kara Maou used his skill at baseball to win a Sword Fight in one of the earlier episodes.
 * The duelist Harrington Rosewood's cards were all tennis themed in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
 * Used quite a bit in Ranma ½: Martial Arts Rythmic Gymnastics, Martial Arts Figure Skating fit in this category, to say nothing of all the Martial Arts and Crafts styles.
 * The Eagle Land All Starz team in Beyblade all had various styles based off of sports. For example, the team leader would pitch his Beyblade like a baseball.
 * Inverted in Eyeshield 21; Orio Tokashiki of the Teikoku Alexanders uses his skills as a boxer to better play American football. Makoto Otawara, Daikichi Komusubi, and Futoshi Omosadake all use their sumo wrestling talents in the sport, as well.
 * Also in Eyeshield 21, several players use skills that they picked up from other sports while playing American football, especially Mizumachi, whose overall technique is based around his abilities as a swimmer.
 * The same happens in Captain Tsubasa, where Wakashimazu Ken is an ex Heir to the Dojo who is also uses his karate skills to play soccer better.
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, during the epic dodgeball match, the girls in going with the lead's advice to use their skills in this environment, used a number of unorthodox sports techniques including a soccer kick, a swimming stroke, a basketball dribble and rhythmic gymnastics.
 * The number of things that Makie can do with a gymnastics ribbon is limited only by her imagination.
 * Airmaster, of course. Once known as the 'Queen of Japanese Gymnastics', she is now known, and feared, in the underground street-fighting circuits as the undefeated Airmaster! She even goes as far as to frequently strike the standard 'finishing pose' of gymnastics after kicking ass.
 * Several characters in Kinnikuman, most notably Specialman, whose entire gimmick is about being an American football player and whose signature move is "Glorious Touchdown", and Kinnikuman Big Body, whose moves are also heavily based on his love of American football. There's also The Mari, who is literally a giant volleyball with arms and legs.
 * In the first fight between Goku and Tien in Dragon Ball, Tien eventually unveils his most powerful technique: Using volleyball moves to toss his opponent around like a ball.
 * Similar to the Beyblade example above, many of the trainers in Pokémon Special have unorthodox methods of launching Poké Balls—Crystal's soccer style, Gold's pool cue, and Yellow's fishing rod come to mind.
 * Let's see, there's Erika's bow and arrows, Koga and Janine's shuriken, Bruno and Brawly's nunchucks, Falkner's boomerangs, Clair's whip...don't think I missed anything...
 * Among the Nakama in Katekyo Hitman Reborn is a swordsman who substituted his initial lack of formal training with his mastery of baseball, even using a baseball bat that turned into a sword when swung fast enough for a while.
 * Waku from Bokurano is a very talented soccer player. While piloting Zearth his arms are pinned by the enemy robot so he instead resorts to soccer kicking the other robot to death.
 * In the manga version he instead kicks Zearth's severed arm right through the enemy robot.
 * Himeko of Sket Dance uses a (field) hockey stick as her Weapon of Choice.
 * Yu Yu Hakusho has one-scene demon who's obsessed with rugby. We don't get to see much of his fighting style, though, because shortly after he attacks Yusuke, one of Rugby's teammates kills him for starting things outside of the ring.

Comic Books

 * The Golden Age DC Comics super villain, the Sportsmaster was an Olympic level athlete who used sporting-themed weapons such as exploding baseballs, flying bases, rocket baseball bats, knockout basketballs, lacrosse snare nets, exploding hockey pucks.
 * There was also the Batman villain Sportsman, who basically had the same gimmick except with lots of anabolic steroids.
 * Marvel Comics has a recurring villain group called the Death Throws who are—wait for it—criminal jugglers. Their juggling implements are also thrown weapons, and they have names like Ringleader, Oddball, Knicknack, Tenpin (snrk!) and Bombshell so you know what their Weapon of Choice will be before they even start to * snort* juggle. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be giggling this much. I'll stop any time now.
 * Green Lantern villain Javelin, who threw gimmicky javelins and was supposedly a former Olympic athlete... No, not in curling.
 * By a similar token, Fastball of the Cadre in The DCU, a minor league baseball pitcher turned assassin after being given a high tech exoskeleton that allowed him to throw exploding balls at supersonic speeds.
 * And the jai alai themed Overthrow, as well.
 * Joining him in this category is Scoopshovel of the Demolition Team, whose skills as a jai alai player are utilized along with his hydraulic toothed bucket arm to uproot entire buildings and send any force back where it came from, plus interest.
 * "Calamity" James Wa from The Order, a former baseball prodigy and track star who lost his legs to a drunk driver, well... let's just say his game still revolves around speed, with his state-of-the-art cybernetic legs allowing him to break the sound barrier. He's also adept at improvising "bats" out of nearby debris, at one point splattering the brains of dozens of zombies with an uprooted parking meter.
 * Astro City featured the Golden Age football-themed All-American and his sidekick, the baseball-styled Slugger.
 * Three Words. NFL Super Pro. Who wasn't even in the NFL, the guy was a sports journalist.
 * Oddly averted in one issue of The Flash: A supervillain crashes a hockey game and tries to steal the touring Stanley Cup, culminating in a showdown with the Flash right on the ice. But the villain is Tarpit, a walking pile of tar, rather than the sport-themed guy you'd expect.
 * Using sports equipment as weapons was the main gimmick of Casey Jones of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame.
 * 8-Ball, the closest thing Sleepwalker has to an arch-enemy, is a billiards-themed supervillain who uses a special pool cue that dramatically multiplies the force applied to it.
 * One of Spider Girl's recurring enemies, Crazy Eight, had a similar gimmick, using trick eight-balls.

Film

 * The Japanese kung-fu horror musical comedy (really) Battlefield Baseball is practically built around this trope, featuring a main character who beats people up during baseball matches, accidentally killed his father by throwing a pitch at him too hard, and fights an evil high school baseball team who kill their opponents. Yeah.
 * Casey Jones from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie uses baseball and cricket bats, hockey sticks and golf clubs as bludgeons. However there are times in the movie, such as his finishing moves, where he actually swings the cricket bat and the golf club in the proper way,
 * Jonathan Cabot from combines ninjutsu and gymnastics to make a new martial art, Gymkata.
 * Jamal from Black Knight. He even shouts the name of the sport style he's using right then. He also trains the rebel army to run football plays in combat.
 * The "triplets" from Dogma are a trio of hockey-themed demons who can use their hockey sticks to open up portals. Or people.
 * In The Running Man, Arnie must defeat a hockey themed hunter in modified goalie pads who calls himself "Sub Zero."
 * Starship Troopers had the "flip-6-3-hole" play imported from some kind of shiny football. It was not in the original story.
 * In Flash Gordon, there's a sequence where a somewhat-dazed Flash and Ming's minions improvise a football play, complete with bowling-ball-knocking-over-pins sounds.
 * Inverted in The Replacements, where one of the replacement players is a sumo wrestler whose incredible skill at pushing people around comes in handy as an offensive lineman in American football.
 * In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy uses cheerleading to kill vampires.
 * Inverted in Romeo Must Die features Jet Li adapting his kung fu to suit a pick-up football game.
 * Though it's not combat per se, the bad guys in Mall Cop execute the takeover of the mall by means of freestyle bicycling and skateboarding, as well as freerunning techniques.
 * Jean Reno takes out some bad guys with golf-fu in Wasabi.
 * The infamous scene in Jurassic Park 2 in which the little girl uses some conveniently placed parallel bars to gymnastics-kick a velociraptor.
 * This is the central premise of the Thai action film Born to Fight.

Literature

 * Wild Cards has Curveball, a softball enthusiast whose "card turned" during a high-pitched game, and ever since then, she's been able to turn any object that can be thrown in one hand into a deadly weapon. It helps that she can telekinetically direct its path. And make it explode.
 * At one point in the 1632 series, a high school is attacked by Croat cavalry (it's complicated). They have some proper weapons, but a number of students end up fighting swords and pistols with fastballs. They're actually reasonably successful; a projectile traveling in the vicinity of 80 miles per hour hitting you in the face at close range is hard to ignore.
 * The only guy using baseballs (who was good enough to play pro in the 20th century, which means it's a 90+ mph fastball) decides to join the military after graduation, so he never has to face THAT kind of situation without a proper weapon. In a later book, he does hit a guy in the face with an apple then beat the crap out of him with a table leg "I never much liked the designated hitter rule".
 * The Krikketmen.
 * In the Modesty Blaise short story "A Better Day to Die" in Pieces of Modesty, a missionary's cricketing skills allow him to play Grenade Hot Potato.
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Harry uses his Quidditch skills to help him win the first task in the Triwzard Tournament. He uses his masterful flying to avoid the dragon and his flames, the Wronski Feint (a complicated technique which he had only learned a few months earlier) to cause the dragon to crash into the ground, and his swift hands to scoop up the egg at the last second.
 * Trip Jones of Monster Hunter International was a school teacher that also was in charge of the sporting events ("it was a small school"). This has given him a natural level of proficiency with melee weapons. Coaching the girl's softball team has also made him the best grenade thrower on the newbie team, which is realistic as modern American grenades are ballball sized and shaped specifically so they take advantage of existing baseball technique.

Live Action TV

 * Power Rangers:
 * Kimberly from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers used a mixture of gymnastics and martial arts for her fighting style, as did Billy. Amy Jo Johnson and David Yost actually were champion gymnasts, Yost earning several state championships and Johnson almost making the U.S. Olympic team before suffering a career-ending injury.
 * Zack, similarly, incorporated breakdancing into his fighting style. Similar to Johnson and Yost, Zack's actor is a professional dancer, who has worked with Cheryl Burke.
 * Also Kat, once her actress began doing her own fight scenes, used ballet in her fighting style.
 * We also can't forget about Lunar Pool.
 * Don't forget Carlos, who is a great, yet clumsy, soccer player.
 * In Power Rangers Wild Force, when Merrick summons the Crocodile, Wolf, and Hammerhead Wildzords, he creates a plane of energy, places the Zords' crystals on it, and then uses his sword/rifle weapon like a billiards cue, shooting them into the sky, where they turn into full grown Zords.
 * One episode of The X-Files involved an old-timey baseball team protecting a Negro League player (who is an alien) from a mounted Ku Klux Klan member (who is also an alien. It's complicated) by chucking high-speed pitches at him. It was the only time the spectacled pitcher ever threw his fastball accurately.
 * In one episode of the series Masquerade, Operation Masquerade recruited a baseball player to help them on the mission. He ended up using his baseball skills to take on a Ninja, including catching a shuriken in his mitt and hurling it back.
 * The second episode of Band of Brothers had 1st Lt. Lynn 'Buck' Compton, the starting catcher for the UCLA baseball team before he joined the paratroopers, hit a German soldier with a grenade with such accuracy and strength that it exploded as soon as it hit him.
 * Angel doubts that Cordelia's claim that her cheerleading experience allows her to remember the swordfighting moves he's teaching her. She does a "cheerleading routine" with her sword and ends up about an inch away from him, holding the sword to his throat; whereupon Angel laughs nervously and says "Go Team!"

Professional Wrestling

 * Wrestling promotions had their share of sport-themed wrestlers such as The Goon (ice hockey), Hole-in-One Barry Darsow (golf) and others who sometimes used their sport equipment for cheating.
 * Might as well toss the mention of "Knuckleball" Schwartz, a baseball parody and most recently, Montel Vontavious Porter, although he's playing it totally straight, and it's not really mentioned what sport he excelled in before joining up with the federation. It's still worth mentioning if only because of the "Ballin' Elbow Drop"
 * A sorta kinda example in John Morrison, who incorporates Capoeira into his moveset, which is as much a dance technique as a martial art.
 * Also they're bringing up that he is a practioner of Le Parkour.
 * Wrestler Bill Goldberg, once an NFL football player, used as his 'finishing move' a modified tackle referred to as 'The Spear.'
 * Which is an actual illegal tackle in football. And yes, it does hurt.
 * AWA once celebrated the upcoming Super Bowl by pitting two former football players against each other in a special rules match that revolved around scoring points.
 * CHIKARA features the Throwbacks, a tag team of athletes from bygone eras. Dasher Hatfield (1910s baseball) and Sugar Dunkerton (1970s basketball) both make heavy use of moves inspired by their sport of choice; one of Hatfield's favorites is "Running the Bases", where he suspends an opponent upside down against a corner post using the ropes, runs around the ring tagging the other corner posts, then slides into "home plate"—his opponent's head.

Tabletop Games

 * The one of the 18 skills in Unisystem Lite is 'sports', every example of its use is given in the rulebook is one of these.
 * The iconic sentai team in RandomAnime has this trope as their theme.
 * The Golden Boys mercenary squad in BattleTech is somewhat related to this trope; they used to be an actual basketball team, are commanded by their old coach, employ masseurs and physical therapists to ensure they're always ready for "game-time", and keep their morale high with a group of cheerleaders.
 * Rifts Australia features the Sportsman O.C.C., a talented athlete in a sport of your choice who adapts the skills from his chosen profession into combat maneuvers. Note that, being Rifts, many familiar sports are barely not gladiatorial combat.

Video Games

 * The Scout from Team Fortress 2 is baseball-themed—he can run especially fast, use a bat as a weapon, become invulnerable from an energy drink, and even stun enemies with baseballs. Many of his taunts and all of his achievement titles are references to baseball, and he wears a baseball cap, hand wraps, and long socks tucked into rolled pants (which is characteristic of old-fashioned baseball uniforms). "Yo, I oughtta be on a baseball card!"
 * Promotional items for Football Manager 2012 give him a soccer fan's scarf, change his running shoes to soccer cleats, and causes him to spawn with a soccer ball. Basically, if you don't have a baseball bat equipped as your melee weapon it completely changes the character's theme sport.
 * Wakka of Final Fantasy X used his Blitzball tactics in battle, and his equippable weapons are all blitzballs. The funny thing about this being that Wakka is canonically not all that great a player.
 * To be fair, Blitzball does appear to be Murder Drowning Ball, and the balls in questions might as well be ballistic weaponry.
 * To elaborate, Blitzballs are thrown underwater at the speed of a fastball in baseball. Additionally, Wakka himself is actually quite a competent player, stat-wise. The failure of his team comes from him being too nice a Captain-the Aurochs, Wakka excepted, aren't exactly amazing players, and Wakka keeps them on, with the mantra of them doing their best being important.
 * Super Mario World features Chargin' Chuck, a variety of Koopa decked out in gridiron football gear, who attacks by rushing, lobbing baseballs (which is why he's the image of Gretzky Has the Ball) and punting footballs. They tend to appear near the curiously goalpost-shaped stage goal.
 * Also Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, which even had a level full of two special kinds of Shy-guy, one who could bat thrown eggs at an angle and one who could catch them (or pick them off the ground) and then chuck them back at you. They'd also try to do the same with watermelon seeds.
 * Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is... weird. Because it portrays basketball as nothing but a martial art. In any case, Charles Barkley's weapons are basketballs and his moves (Free Throw, Fadeaway, Double Team) are all perfectly game legal... until he learns to Dual Wield and uses two balls, that is. Surprisingly averted in the cases of every other party member, especially Vinceborg, a cyborg Vince Carter: they're all directly linked to basketball in some way but their abilities aren't based on the sport at all. Of course, all these changes happened after the incident with the chaos dunk.
 * And let's not forget the greatest Platform Game of all time: Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City.
 * The American Sports team members Lucky Glauber and Brian Battler of The King of Fighters. Half of Lucky's moves involve him lobbing a basketball at his opponents, some of which include him doing jump shots. Lucky also does a couple dunk inspired attacks. Most of Brian's attacks are inspired by Professional Wrestling, but he also has several football attacks including tackles, a chop block and a drop kick.
 * Also from King of Fighters (well, Fatal Fury), Terry Bogard has a move called "Power Dunk" (POUWAH DAANHK) which is a jumping mid air skill-cracking punch which is said he modified from the basketball move.
 * Sean fromStreet Fighter III has a taunt where he does a jump shot with a multi-colored basketball that does a single pixel of damage if it hits. It's useful for setting up combos, as it can't be blocked low.
 * The students of the very sports driven Gorin High School in Rival Schools best represent this trope. Shoma (baseball), Natsu (volleyball), Roberto (soccer), Nagare (swimming), and Momo (tennis) all have moves that heavily involve the sports they play, including stances, positions, most of their attacks and projectiles that are balls in their respective games. They all even fight in their sports wear.
 * Johnny Maximum from World Heroes has a heavily football inspired fighting style which includes, rushing attacks and energy footballs as projectiles. Justified in that he works officially as a quarterback, just...a very violent one. He's also based heavily on Joe Montana (note the uniform colors).
 * Princess Peach has used a golf club and tennis racquet in the Super Smash Bros. series, inspired by her appearances in Mario Golf and Mario Tennis. When Waluigi appears as an assist trophy in Brawl, he also uses a tennis racket to reference his debut game.
 * There's also Ness's baseball bat (which is lifted from his game) and the other baseball bat item. Also the soccer ball.
 * There are a number of 2D platform games in which the main character kicks a football as their main weapon, including Marko's Magic Football, Soccer Kid and Go Go Beckham, the latter starring a cartoon version of real-life footballer David Beckham.
 * In Eternal Fighter Zero, Nayuki Minase (awake) has a fighting style characterized by intricate kicks and very fast footwork, a reference to her position as the school's track team captain in Kanon.
 * The Mutant League games were about this trope ratcheted up to the level of Blood Sport. The short-lived cartoon based on them tried to make it Lighter and Softer by a Techno Babble Hand Wave form of Good Thing You Can Heal, and even a Very Special Episode about how humans can't be regenerated like Mutants and should not imitate the really cool graphic violence that made up the bulk of every episode. Guess how well that went over.
 * Elite Beat Agents had Hulk Bryman, a washed up baseball player defeat an evil monster using his baseball skills (with the help of cheering from the EBA. Can he kick butt? "You bet, kid!"
 * Shaq Fu, starring the famous basketball player Shaquille O'Neal.
 * In Persona 3, Junpei Iori holds his sword with the wrong foot forward, meaning that he's essentially swinging it like a baseball bat. His critical hit even has him yell "HOME RUN!!". As befitting The Load, he falls over a lot doing so.
 * The Sega Genesis game Michael Jackson's Moonwalker has Michael Jackson going around various stages... rescuing little kids from suit-clad gangsters. His moves? High dance-kick, spin-and-throw-hat, and the special "make everyone imitate your dance and then fall over and die when they can't keep up with your straight, 45-degree angle pose". Those ankle joints must be made of titanium or something; there's no way that pose is physically possible. It doesn't help that he does it on stage in real life...
 * Michael Jackson had a patent on the technology used to perform that move. It involves special shoes and pegs on stage, wires and harnesses on video.
 * Any characters from sports manga in Jump Super Stars
 * Raiden from the 'Fatal Fury'' series is a former American football player who adapted certain moves to fit his later career choice as a wrestler. For instance, he will take a lineman's three-point stance before launching into a vicious shoulder tackle
 * Duck King also breakdances.
 * Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes mixes his apparently professional sword training with Mexican luchador wrestling moves learned by watching video tapes, as well as special attacks learned from his favorite fictional moe anime, 'Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly'.
 * Subverted with Charlie MacDonald who despite being a Football player actually fights Travis in a Humongous Mecha showdown. He has one attack where he throws a giant football at Travis and his mech's main body is shaped like a football, but the theme isn't really all that strong.
 * Some of the best enemies to fight in Final Fantasy VIII if you want to get a lot of AP very quickly happen to be the hockey teams in Galbadia Garden.
 * A fighting game based on 80's TV show Spitting Image has a playable fighter whose style is "adapted from the dance moves of John Travolta". The fighter? Mikhail Gorbachev.
 * This is the angle behind the All Stars gang in Urban Rivals, each member of whom is a fighter who uses skills from their specific sport to beat ass like a pro. While the standard hockey (Alexei), football (Randy), soccer (Striker), baseball (Lamarr), and basketball (Mikki) types are present, more esoteric examples include Bhudd, the zen martial arts master and ace bowler; Dan, ping pong expert and channeler of dark forces; and Robb, a legendary champion at darts who uses his flinging skills as a guerrilla.
 * One of the potential encounters in Fallout 3 is an ice-hockey themed gang named "Sudden Death Overtime."
 * Strike Man (who looks like a baseball, no less) from Mega Man 10 throws "Rebound Strikers", fastballs that bounce all over the place and get more deadly per bounce. You could arguably count the ski instructor Blizzard Man here, too.
 * In Mega Man Battle Network games, there's Gridman.exe (football) and Bowlman.exe (bowling)
 * Mr. X Stage 1 in Rockman 6: Unique Harassment takes place in a generic sports stadium based on Strike Man's tileset. Every enemy from Strike Man's stage from Mega Man 10 show up here displaying their full knowledge of sports to destroy Mega Man. The boss for this stage is the Keeper.
 * A fairly obscure Beat'Em Up by Toaplan, called Knuckle Bash, has a boss character named Kyaputeso (which is a pun on "Captain" that's kind of hard to explain succinctly), a football player, who becomes playable after you defeat him.
 * BrawlBusters features as playable classes the Slugger, a baseball player who slides and wields an odd bat that shoots balls when swung, and the Blitzer, a football player who uses pump fakes (fake passes) in his combos and can perform a variation on a Ground Pound by spiking his ever-present ball.
 * Fighting Vipers features Picky and Charlie, whose fighting styles are centered around skateboarding and BMX, respectively. Charlie in particular has a stance where he's actually riding his bike that incorporates tailwhips, backflips, and simply running his opponent down into his moveset.
 * One of the ghosts in Luigi's Mansion is Slim Bankshot, an ace pool player who uses his cue to shoot billiard balls at you.
 * In Samurai Warriors, Imagawa Yoshimoto fights with a sword and a Kemari ball and his attacks tend to involve a lot of ball-kicking.
 * The Japan-exclusive arcade beat-em-up Undercover Cops features as one of its playable characters Matt Gables, a former pro football player who can shoulder tackle, punt, and spike enemies to the ground.
 * In Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight, Jean Steamboard has a pair of supers based on the sports of volleyball and soccer. Mayumi Suguru makes cameos in both of those attacks. Mayumi attempts to save the foe, but ends up causing more damage. If Jean wins a victory during the soccer super, Sayuri will get pissed and toss Mayumi face-first at the camera.

Web Comics

 * Daniel Ti'Fiona of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, has incredible dodging skills. From dance games.
 * Soul Symphony: Seconds after waking up in a magical world for the first time, John is told to summon whatever he is passionate about to use as a weapon. He then kills five enemies using a basketball. He takes out the unlucky sixth using a certain dunk.

Western Animation

 * In the '80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, Casey Jones doesn't have any sports skill to back up his attacks, although he does make some horrible sports puns. In the '03 series Casey has used hockey tactics in his fighting style.
 * The Mighty Ducks combat skills, weapons, gadgets and way of thinking are mostly based off hockey. Their whole planet's culture revolves around hockey.
 * The Sports Boyzz of The BOTS Master. They are Batzz (baseball), Bogey (golf), Ace (tennis) and All Ball (volleyball and soccer).
 * The Sportsman was a thinly veiled Captain Ersatz for the DC Comics villain the Sportsmaster in Justice League.
 * The Sportsmaster appears in Young Justice as a recurring villain, with lots of weaponised sports equipment.
 * Kim Possible from the show of the same name has She Fu moves and fighting ability that is rooted in her cheerleading ability.
 * One of that show's recurring villains is Duff Killigan, a rogue golfer who uses explosive golf balls in his capers.
 * Pro Stars was a TV show featuring the crime fighting trio of Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, and Wayne Gretzky. And yes, all of their crimefighting gadgets involved their respective sports (except, of course, Bo Jackson, who could seemingly pull out any sport he wanted due to the Bo Knows commercials).
 * In King Arthur and the Knights of Justice, the Aurthur King and his team would use American football plays and strategies in their battles against the Warlords.
 * In an inversion, Rocky and Bullwinkle use tactical plans from Robert E. Lee as their football plays, to some success.
 * G.I. Joe character Captain Gridiron, an ex-quarterback that runs around in modified football gear and throws football-shaped grenades. The toyline also featured famous Chicago Bears Defensive End William "the Refrigerator" Perry, who had a chain with a spiked metal football at the end. It was actually a tradition for each new wave of figures to feature at least one sport-themed character, though many aren't quite so blatant as the examples already given; one of the few on the Cobra side of things are Frag-Vipers, hand grenade experts outfitted with a "manual hurling basket" based on a Jai Alai cesta
 * Jake from Bakugan Gundalian Invaders use football tactics in his Bakugan fights.
 * Since the Summer 2003 Bionicle setline put such a big emphasis on action features based around their Fictional Sport of Kohlii, the makers of the movie Mask of Light decided that the big showdown at the end would consist of The Hero and the Big Bad playing a more furious and deadly version. In the end, it was a Kohlii move that struck down the villain (if only temporarily). Meanwhile, the main BIONICLE story writer thought this was a stupid and cheap way of cheating the viewers of a real fight.

Real Life

 * In this video Bob Sapp demonstrates how American Football is not a martial art.
 * The fight choreographer for Star Wars Episode I was said to have used elements of tennis in designing the Jedi lightsaber technique.
 * "Battle of the Hockey Enforcers" takes hockey, and removes all the boring "hockey" parts by just having two guys in full gear box on the ice. Whether this is an inversion or played straight is hard to figure out—fighting is a part of the game itself...
 * The M67 grenade (currently used by the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a few others) is shaped like a baseball so it can thrown like one.