King of Iron Fist Tournament

The King of Iron Fist Tournament (ザ・キング・オブ・アイアンフィストトーナメント Za Kingu obu Aian Fisuto Tōnamento) is a fictional world-wide martial arts competition in the Tekken series that is held sporadically and is hosted by the Mishima Zaibatsu until Tekken 8. It draws renowned fighters from all around the globe, and the winner will receive a large sum of money. Starting from the fourth tournament, the winner also receives ownership of the entire Mishima Zaibatsu.. The eighth tournament, the first to be hosted by someone other than the Mishima Zaibatsu, would provide a hefty reward to not just the winner of the tournament, but also the region that the fighter was representing.

The tournaments act as the main setting of the Tekken games, with each main game involving a new tournament.

Sponsors

A tournament flyer in the (non-canonical) Tekken: The Motion Picture

The sponsors of the tournament act as a host of sorts for the competition and are always the Sub-Boss or Final Boss of the game. To this end, they do not enter the tournament and compete through the ranks, but instead enter in the finals against the last standing competitor.

• First Tournament - Heihachi Mishima
• Second Tournament - Kazuya Mishima
• Third Tournament - Heihachi Mishima
• Fourth Tournament - Heihachi Mishima
• Fifth Tournament - Jinpachi Mishima
• Sixth Tournament - Jin Kazama
• Seventh Tournament - Heihachi Mishima
• Eighth Tournament - Kazuya Mishima / Devil Kazuya

Winners

Starting from the fourth tournament, the winner will be given ownership of the Mishima Zaibatsu (although the winner also unofficially took control after the first and second tournaments).

• First Tournament - Kazuya Mishima
• Second Tournament - Heihachi Mishima
• Third Tournament - Jin Kazama (Paul Phoenix defeated Ogre in the third tournament and, believing himself to be the winner, left. Unknown to Paul, Ogre morphed into his final form, True Ogre, and the tournament continued in his absence. In the end, Jin was proclaimed as the true victor of the third Tournament for being victorious over True Ogre. However, he was shot by his grandfather, Heihachi. Jin later transformed into a devil version of himself, attacked Heihachi, and flew off).
• Fourth Tournament - Heihachi Mishima (Three endings are partially canonical in Tekken 4, the first part of Heihachi's, the middle part of Kazuya's, and all of Jin's. Heihachi is the winner of the fourth tournament, having beaten Kazuya in the final round. (The battle at Hon-Maru takes place outside the tournament). Kazuya's Tekken 5 character profile confirms that he lost to his father in the fourth tournament.)
• Fifth Tournament - Jin Kazama (Jin had actually lost to Hwoarang but he transformed into Devil Jin and hospitalized Hwoarang. Presumably because Hwoarang could not continue, Jin was allowed to continue in his place, and progressed through the tournament to win it).
• Sixth Tournament - None (Tournament was cancelled due to Jin's disappearance.)
• Seventh Tournament - None (Cancelled due to Heihachi being declared dead.)
• Eighth Tournament - None (Cancelled due to an attack from United Nations and Yggdrasil)

Stages

Starting in Tekken 4, there is one main stage that remains in each entry, which is implied to be where either the final match takes place, or where the audience is able to spectate on the matches. These stages share the name Arena

• Tekken 4
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2
• Tekken 7
• Tekken 8

Tekken: The Motion Picture

For the movie, the tournament was mostly invite only. However, if one could properly gain access to the ship heading to the event venue, they could also be allowed to participate without issues. Such was the case for Jack-2. The tournament took place on an island owned by the Zaibatsu. Little info is given on how the tournament is run, though given how Lei and Jack-2 immediately abandoned the tournament as soon as it began as well as Lee releasing several dinosaurs while the tournament continued without issue, it can be presumed that it is a simple battle royale with fighters scattered across and cameras taking note of those who were already defeated.

The tournament winner would have presumably been either the one who first overcame the others or Heihachi, but given how Kazuya simply reached Heihachi's location without fighting every other fighter or in any given format, there is little to say towards someone possibly approaching Heihachi straight out without encountering the other competitors.

The entire tournament would be thrown into chaos due to Lee setting fire to the island, and it was presumably called off during Kazuya and Heihachi's fight as Lei had already evacuated all the other fighters by the time Kazuya and Jun escaped.

Tekken: Bloodline

In the series, the tournament runs by a single elimination bracket format. The process of entry into the tournament is never fully revealed outside of personal invites from Heihachi. Like The Motion Picture, the tournament's stage venue was limited only to the arena in Peru, though the actual ring where combatants fought was varied, such as Jin's fight against Hwoarang taking place in the center of a maze with several walls built around them, and Xiaoyu's fight against King taking place in a jungle.

The progression of the tournament, however, is not uniformed, as Jin and Hwoarang's semi-finals match finished before Paul could even have his first match against Kuma. Nonetheless, Heihachi would interject himself into the tournament for the title of "True King of Iron Fist", followed by Ogre's battle against Jin, which was considered officially by Heihachi as part of the tournament.

Trivia

• Heihachi Mishima has sponsored the most tournaments, having sponsored the first, third, fourth and seventh tournaments.
  • He is also tied with Jin for most tournament wins, winning both the second and fourth tournaments, while Jin has won both the third and fifth tournaments.
  • Kazuya hosted the 2nd and 8th tournaments making the the 2nd most recurring host after Heihachi
• Every tournament has been sponsored by someone within the Mishima Family.
• Even though Jin technically defeated Kazuya and Heihachi in Tekken 4, this fight took place outside the tournament, and the tournament was already over by that time. Jin also was defeated by Hwoarang in the fifth tournament, but the tournament officials let him continue after Jin fought Hwoarang again in his devil form.
• According to King's Tekken 2 bio, he came in third place in the first Iron Fist Tournament and received some prize money for this position.
• According to Hwoarang's Tekken 6 bio, he defeated Jin in the fifth Iron Fist Tournament, making him the only person to officially defeated Jin in a tournament to date.
• The Iron Fist Tournament is the most popular international fighting tournament in the world.
• Although the Eighth Tournament's prize was meant to be compensation for the winner's region during the main story, in the Character Episodes the winner, following the trend of previous games, is simply made the owner of the Mishima Zaibatsu instead.