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Battle royal

Battle royal (pl. battles royal or battle royals, also battle royale)[1] traditionally refers to a fight involving many combatants, usually conducted under either boxing or wrestling rules, where the winner is the one who registers the most wins. In recent times, the term has been used in a more general sense to refer to any fight involving large numbers of people who are not organized into factions. Within combat sports and professional wrestling, the term has a more specific meaning.

This article is about the genre and form of last-man-standing fight. For other uses, see Battle Royale.

Outside sports, the term battle royale has taken on a new meaning in the 21st century, from Koushun Takami's 1999 Japanese dystopian novel Battle Royale and its 2000 film adaptation of the same name, referring to a fictional narrative genre and/or mode of entertainment also known as death games and killing games, where a select group of people is instructed to hunt and kill one another in a large arena until there is only one survivor.

Sports[edit]

Historical uses[edit]

In 18th century England, bare-knuckle boxing conducted according to Jack Broughton's rules included matches involving eight fighters. Referred to as "Broughton's Battle Royals", these events were spoofed in political cartoons of the era.[2] The practice eventually fell out of favor in the United Kingdom, but it continued in the American colonies. Lower-class white people who lived in the backcountry practiced "free-for-all" as well as rough-and-tumble fighting. The practice also spread to American enslaved people, who held mass fights as a form of entertainment. Frederick Douglass wrote that such distractions, as well as the consumption of alcohol, were "among the most effective in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection."[3]


After the American Civil War, the battle royal became even more popular, but the events were also increasingly considered shameful and disreputable. Promoters of boxing events arranged for brutal free-for-alls with few rules, generally between black boxers. The audience for these spectacles were almost always white, unlike the pre-War entertainment within the enslaved communities.[4] A battle royal was a frequent opening event for boxing and wrestling shows from about 1870 1910. They originated and were most popular in the American South, but they eventually spread to the North as well. However, the events fell out of favor, especially in the North. In New York, the State Athletic Commission banned battles royal in 1911. They continued in the South from the 1910s to the 1950s, but with less popularity. The 1952 novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison contains a depiction of a battle royal. By the 1960s, battles royal had been banned in the South.[4]


The battle royal was a way for an aspiring boxer to get noticed, and successful battle royal champions gained enough prestige to take part in more respectable boxing matches. Jack Johnson, Joe Gans, and Beau Jack are three successful boxers who started out in battles royal.[4]

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