Blood Sport: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be Rollerball.''|[[Tagline]] for ''[[Rollerball]]'' (1975).}}
In [[The Future]], [[Anyone Can Die|life is cheap]]. No better way to show that than with some good old-fashioned violent spectator sports, where fatalities are a very real possibility every single game, [[Crapsack World|if not the major selling point]]. Essentially, a
Of course, this trope is not limited to the future; gladiator-style entertainments often pop up in the [[Backstory]] of a [[Barbarian Hero]], for instance. This is historical [[Truth in Television]], of course; formalized bloodsports have been around since at least the ancient Greek Olympic Games, and informal ones most likely go further back than that
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Exactly how the sport is dangerous varies. It could be as simple as something extremely risky, such as racing at supersonic speeds, a more mundane sport with the added bonus that the players are allowed/encouraged to physically attack each other, or flat out [[Gladiator Games|gladiatorial matches]] of some kind where the entire goal is for one side to kill or seriously maim the other. Apparently, mankind forgot the whole thing about the sanctity of life somewhere [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|in the past nineteen minutes]].
Usually, the deaths will be of the many young rookie players, but sometimes, a veteran slips up, or a longtime feud will come to a sudden, violent end. Frequently, the players are [[Condemned Contestant
These sports may form the central part of the story, but in many cases, they're just shown or described as a way of letting the audience know just how messed-up this world has become.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* Motorball from ''[[Battle Angel Alita]]'' and spinoff ''Ashen Victor'' may not be intentionally lethal to participants, but some of the players certainly make it so. Also, a prime example of controlling the underclass by giving them a ''
** The Scrapyard also has gladiatorial combat between giant cyborgs for entertaining the masses.
* The Gundam Fight from ''[[Mobile Fighter G Gundam]]'' is described in-show as "A war based on the principles of sportsmanship", with every country in the world being represented by a [[Motion Capture Mecha]] piloted by a trained fighter. Although the battles are (usually) bloodless, the Mobile Trace system that runs the [[Humongous Mecha]] feeds back any damage incurred on them back to the pilot as physical pain. Thus, for example, if your machine has its arm torn off, you will feel as though your ''own'' arm just got torn off. The fact that many such injuries are simply shrugged off as an annoyance is one of the many reasons why just about [[World of Badass|everybody in the show]] is a major [[Badass]].
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* There are two crash race mini arcs in ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]''.
* ''[[Bakusou Kyoudai Let's & Go!!]]'' provides a A [[Lighter and Softer]] version as they're toying with toys rather than real people. The show starts up with a typical mini 4WD racing competitions, but later, there's a [[Big Bad]] and his team who introduce battle parts to be used in racing. ''Kids'' are encouraged to make their toys mini weapons to crash and destroy oppornent's cars. Since the plot has more than one of the heroes' machine trashed by these rules, and since they have a believe that [[Sliding Scale of Living Toys|their mini 4WDs have souls.]] They take it a [[Serious Business]].
* The Air Treks of ''[[Air Gear]]'' initially began as a worldwide fad that was supposed to be inline skating taken [[Up to Eleven]]. It turned into the
* While killing is explicitly forbidden in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'''s World Martial Arts Tournament, considering it's a full-contact fight between serious fighters who often have superhuman powers it's not surprising that severe injury does sometimes occur. It's somewhat telling that there even needs to ''be'' an explicit rule about not killing your opponent.
* ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]'' is a prison where the prisoners are forced to do insanely dangerous "events" like an obstacle race where you can be cut to ribbons, fall to your death or just fall into a pit of spikes. To make matters worse, the audiences watch and believe it is all "special effects". And then there's the Carnival of Corpses; where prisoners with [[Bloody Murder|Branches of Sin powers]] fight each other and sometimes are cheered to kill their defeated opponents. Oh, and the loser (if they live) gets a randomly selected body part (ranging from hair to [[Eye Scream|eyes]] to entire organs or limbs]]) removed while they're awake. If you don't participate and are on "Death Row", then you are killed by poison after 72 hours and can only buy antidote to keep living for another 72 hours with Cast Points; earned by surviving and winning the
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* [[Enki Bilal]]'s comics feature chessboxing (boxing first, then chess) and a version of ice hockey where the points are counted by goals, wounded and dead.
** Chessboxing... [[wikipedia:Chess boxing|you mean this?]] [[Defictionalization]] strikes again.
* Spinball, from the notorious ''Action'' comic. Played only by [[Condemned Contestant
* Supersurf from [[2000 AD]]'s ''[[Judge Dredd]]''. An (initially) illegal [[Sky Surfing]] race through densely-populated streets, weaving between high-speed traffic. Later races included moving obstacles, snipers or dangerously narrow checkpoints.
** Also used in a ritualized "war" between Megacity One and the Sovs, in which Judges from each side fight to the death in a televised contest.
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** Since there's no rules, the halfling team decides this means they can play Orcball mounted on horses with polo mallets. The orcs decide that means they can use mounts too. Harley-Davidsons, specifically.
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Running Man (novel)|The Running Man]]''. In this version, TV is free and is dominated by bloody gameshows where desperate contestants agree to risk life and limb for the chance at cash prizes. The most popular show, "Running Man" offers the biggest reward, but is almost certain suicide. The contestant is set loose into society, and viewers are asked to keep a watch out for him and provide tips for the show's bounty hunters.
* Another [[Stephen King]] as Richard Bachman: ''[[The Long Walk]]''. 100 teenage males are required to walk at no less than [[American Customary Measurements|four miles per hour]], with no breaks. Drop below 4 miles an hour and you draw a warning. Walk for an hour without going below the limit and you lose a warning from your record. You can have up to 3 warnings and continue. Draw a fourth warning, and the army grunts who've been tailing the Walkers the entire time shoot you in the head. Last person left alive wins. The Walk follows the same route every year (the end point varies, naturally), and crowds gather to watch when it passes through their area. News updates when Walkers are eliminated or reach certain significant points on the route are broadcast nationwide,
* [[Robert Sheckley]]'s ''Victim Prime'' and ''The Tenth Victim'' are both set in a world where war has been replaced by "The Hunt". Taking place on a Caribbean island, The Hunt is quite simple: pay your entry fee, then face ten hunts against the same opponent, five as the Hunter and five as the Victim. The Victim is not only allowed, but expected to try to kill the Hunter. Bonus points are awarded for style and ingenuity, points are deducted for unnecessary collateral damage and killing non-victims. The very few who survive all ten hunts are treated as huge celebrities.
* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, Emperor Jagang brings to the world the game of Ja'La, which is like football without pads and no penalties for unnecessary roughness...or unnecessary murder.
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** ''[[Wipeout]]'' adds weapons, and the level of lethality depends on how much of a [[Crapsack World]] the installment is. Most recent titles are considered to have emergency teleportation, and ''Fusion'' had some sort of safety monocoque containing the pilot that would survive when the rest of the ship blew up. On the other hand, in ''Wipeout 64'' pilot deaths were considered to draw more viewers.
* The Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC game ''[[Skate Ball]]'' was one-third handball, one-third roller-hockey, and one-third barroom brawl, played on a field full of deadly traps. On ice.
* The ''[[Unreal Tournament]]'' series features full-on gladiatorial combat with [[BFG
** Well, until ''[[Unreal Tournament 3|Unreal Tournament III]]'', whose central conceit is that the Respawner technology used in these tournaments has been back-adapted to conventional warfare... with limitations and operation that are inexplicably similar to the contests of more traditional ''[[Unreal Tournament]]'' games. [[Fridge Logic|It doesn't make sense]], but it's [[Rule of Cool|an interesting idea]] and is an excuse to include a plotline ''not'' revolving around the tournaments, so it works anyway.
* On the far end of the spectrum, however, we have ''[[Mutant League Football]]''. Players included [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink|trolls, skeletons, aliens, and robots]], fields were littered with [[Death Course|landmines, pits, and other booby traps]], each team had a number of "audibles" representing tricks and gadgets that could be used once per half (like giving a player a [[Jet Pack]], [[Stuff Blowing Up|hand grenades]], or [[Fartillery|lethal flatulence]], or [[Shmuck Bait|rigging the ball to explode and then fumbling it]]), players would occasionally be killed from taking too much abuse on the field, and you could occasionally bribe the ref to call bogus penalties on your opponent for things like "whining" or "nose-picking". Of course, your opponent could then kill the ref and only take a five-yard penalty. There was also ''Mutant League Hockey'', which was pretty much the same thing with a different sport.
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* Mentioned briefly in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', although medical technology seems to play a role here as a player is blown to smithrines but will be back for the game next week. [[Rugby Is Slaughter|Rugby on the other hand...]]
* "FLARPing" in ''[[Homestuck]]'', a roleplaying game on Alternia in which the goal is to lure your opponents into very real death traps, including "trials" that almost always ends in the execution of the "defendant" (and often the "prosecutor") and a "plank" over the mouth of a man-eating [[Giant Spider]].
* In ''[[Manly Guys Doing Manly Things]]'' Jared and his Gyarados Mr. Fish were kicked out of the [[Pokémon]] League because he assumed Pokemon battling was a
* ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' has an arena for gladiatorial combat. Many contestants end up crushed and/or eaten by a T-rex.
* ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship]]'' presents: [http://www.pbfcomics.com/190/ Extreme Crocball]. Then there are [http://www.pbfcomics.com/249/ Memorabilia]...
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* Though this example technically isn't a man-to-man fight, bullfighting is definitely a bloodsport. Granted, the fatality rate of the bulls is statistically much higher than that of the ''matadores'' (the full title is ''matador de los toros'', or "bull-killer") but the threat of being gored by the horns is still there.
** The bull always dies; even if the matador fails to kill it, the bull is led out of the ring and slaughtered. This is because a bull that was allowed to fight more than once would mangle every matador that faced it; fighting bulls learn quickly. There are some illegal bullfights where amateur, inexperienced, or hard-luck matadors fight bulls that, in violation of the law, were not killed after being in a bullfight. These tend to end bloodily for the matadors.
* In the Ancient Greek martial art pankration, a fighter can die from being strangled or having his neck snapped. The only rules prohibited eye gouging and biting, and the implementation of those rules caused Sparta, in a sign of their immense [[
* During its early years, [[Mixed Martial Arts]] was compared to "human cockfighting", and the sensationalistic word "bloodsport" is still commonly used in mainstream media to describe it. Old school boxing purists will stand beside their framed pictures of Muhammad Ali looming with fist cocked over an unconscious Sonny Liston and complain about how "brutal" the emerging sport is. Suffice it to say, modern MMA is no more dangerous or brutal than boxing, and arguably less so.
** A major reason for this is that MMA fights often reduce to grappling, and fighters will tap out. That beats getting beating senseless. That said, submissions are going down every year as fighters learn how to break more and more holds.
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