In fight tournaments, whether it is boxing, grappling or martial arts, there is usually a first and second place winner or first through fourth place winners. In recent years, there has been movements to have tournaments to not only award the participants for coming out, participating and winning, but to award the participants on their efforts also. This is the same as saying thank you for supporting the tournament and its promoters.

Individual martial arts schools in the northeastern United States have operated martial arts tournaments that have as many as 30 consolation rounds, rewarding almost everyone that had participated in the tournament. The schools who promoted the tournaments go home happy from the fees earned by the tournament and their fighters go home with trophies and medals to brag about to their friends and relatives.

The first sanctioned organization I have known to practice this concept is the North American Sport Karate Association (NASKA) and Promoters Plus. They usually have up to ten consolation rounds in their smaller tournaments and more for the larger tournaments. The tournaments are light contact point karate. Once you score, the action starts up again. Three points are usually the winning score. In the continuous contact, which is medium to full contact and looks more like kickboxing. The traditional first to third place winners are the same as in any other tournament.

These tournaments are very popular and have the fighters far outnumbering the spectators. The information I was given from a Promoters Plus official is the concept is catching on in the United Kingdom, particularly Ireland.

This concept is a good one for not only the fighting sports but for anyone that has a sport or competition where you want to send each competitor home happy with something to be proud of. The promoters of this concept will see a significant growth in their promotional activity year after year because of happy participants.

The grand prizewinners receive 6-foot tall trophies, but the trophies get smaller as the consolation rounds continue. In the latter half of the consolation rounds, the participants receive medals for their fights. Each trophy and medal indicates what consolation round they won and what place.

If you have boxing club or grappling club and you do not have this concept; it may be good for you to examine this concept.

Remember that EVERYBODY WINS especially your bottom line.