Battle Royale ripped-off the Roman gladiatorial games

When the hell was there anything about Japanese wrestling in the books?

"Clirby" is one of the sockpuppets of the main troll on these boards so I don't like replying to these sorts of threads. However I think his misleading information about Japanese wrestling needs to be nipped in the bud, so:

The book (and by extension, film) "Battle Royale" borrowed the "many fighters, one winner" concept and title from modern Japanese wrestling. The BR trolls have tried to use this as evidence that the battle royale concept is originally Japanese, and that this was then copied for THG (conveniently ignoring the obvious question as to why a Japanese wrestling concept would have an English/French name...)

However, what this misses is that Japanese Pro wrestling is - like much of modern Japanese culture - a mish-mash of Western and Eastern concepts. The "Battle Royal" (correct spelling) was borrowed from 19th/20th Century American wrestling/boxing, which in turn borrowed it from 18th Century British boxing.
http://www.cagesideseats.com/2013/3/9/4028970/battle-royal-WWE-Boxing-wrestling-with-past-origins-history-combat-sports-part-one
http://www.cagesideseats.com/2013/3/10/4070146/wrestling-with-past-battle-royal-WWE-Boxing-part-two/in/3323215

Significantly (and interestingly, considering that Collins' portrayal of D11 was deliberately based on the Southern slave States), American battle royals were mainly popular in the South and had heavily racial overtones, with black fighters performing for white audiences. These fights continued right up until the 1960's, and yes: they frequently involved children. The singer James Brown actually competed in these when he was a child, and one of these fights is portrayed in the biopic Get On Up: the children would be blindfolded, have their left hand tied behind their back, a boxing glove put on their right hand, and then forced to fight until only one child was left standing. The children would also each have a number painted on their chest to enable the audience to bet on the result. Brown was apparently pretty good at these fights...

So there you have it: the idea of a group of children fighting until there's only one left standing in an event called a "Battle Royal(e)" is actually an American creation - not Japanese at all...

--
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen."

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