Post-Game Retaliation - TV Tropes

"I went to an inner-city high school. Our football team was terrible, but our fighters were good. We might lose the fourth quarter in the ballgame, but we'd win the fifth quarter after the game: the fight."

— Carl Douglas, former attorney for O. J. Simpson (comparing Simpson's conviction for the 2007 Las Vegas robbery to this), O.J.: Made in America

• Subverted in IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix. Team Satomi manages to beat Sledge Mamma, despite mechanical sabotage during the race. The team thought this was something Sledge Mamma would do since they usually use underhanded tactics. After the race, Takeshi, Liz, and Amy are ambushed by a group of thugs who had previously hassled Takeshi. Sledge Mamma showed up behind them, leaving Satomi trapped between the two. Satomi feared the worst. The thugs attack but are quickly beaten down by Sledge Mamma. The thugs admit to being Sledge Mamma fans, but Yamma tells them that what they did was despicable.

  Yamma: Sorry about that. Our fans can get a little rowdy sometimes. We just wanna beat ya, not beat you up.

• Medaka Box: Intentionally used by Kumagawa Misogi in the first match of the Election Battles. Standing on a precarious grating slowly falling into a pit of snakes until someone surrenders, Kumagawa concedes the match... and then just keeps attacking his opponent anyway. Why does he get away with this? Two reasons; one, since the match is over, this is a private quarrel that the Election Committee can't interfere with. And two, nobody can jump down after them without making the grating fall down to the venomous snakes immediately.
• One Piece:
  • The 4Kids dub inserted this into Zoro's Backstory. Instead of his rival Kuina abruptly dying when she fell down the stairs, several other students who were just as sore about losing to her as Zoro was ambushed and brutally beat her, leaving her so crippled she was unable to continue pursing her dreams. This was apparently considered a kinder fate than her Surprisingly Sudden Death.
  • During the Corrida Colosseum tournament in Dressrosa, the participants who'd lost to Rebecca in the Round D match ganged up and attempted to assult her right before the next round. Fortunately, Diamante (the event organizer of the colosseum) stops them short, saying that Rebecca won by the rules.
• Pokémon: The Original Series:
  • In the episode "The Flame Pokémon-athon," this happens after Dario fails to win a race, despite such tactics as Crippling the Competition, and Ash is the winner instead. Dario and his Dodrio immediately attack Ash and the Rapidash he's riding—and promptly get kicked into the stratosphere.
  • During Pokémon League tournaments, it's against the rules for competing trainers and their Pokémon to pick fights with each other outside of official matches.
• Double subverted in a later episode of Sailor Moon; Haruka wins a motorcycle race and other bikers plan to attack her. One of her more honorable opponents warns them to stay away. But later on, bikers riding in a truck attempt to run Haruka and Usagi off the road; they then attack Haruka afterwards, but she easily mops the floor with them.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Furious at losing to Yugi, Panik snaps and retaliates with flamethrowers. Fortunately for Yugi, and unfortunately for Panik, the Millennium Puzzle beats fire any day of the week, and Panik is Mind Raped for his tantrum.

  Panik: I may not have defeated you, Yugi... BUT I CAN STILL ELIMINATE YOUUUUUUUUU!

• In Genkai's disciple selection test early on in YuYu Hakusho, she has all her applicants get lots of paper. If their paper changed color, they could start her selection trials. If not, they were told to leave. Two self-proclaimed experts angrily attack Genkai over being rejected. She promptly blasts them with spirit energy across the courtyard and into her entrance gate. (It turns out that her paper lots were not random; they only changed color if those holding them had a certain amount of spirit energy.)

• The Lion King: After Nala pins Simba for the first time when the two are play fighting together, Simba glares at her in frustration over being easily beaten by her. Immediately after this when he sees she's distracted feeling proud of herself, he pounces on her from behind to get revenge, but this doesn't work out for him either when they accidentally roll down a nearby hill together, resulting in Nala pinning him again and smugly rubbing it in his face.

• In the second 3 Ninjas film 3 Ninjas Kick Back, the defeated baseball team goes for "extra innings" — that is, attack the victorious players and their friend, Miyo. One of the boys decides to fight Miyo, but it does not end well for him.
• In Avengers: Endgame, Thor threatens this of a player who defeated Korg in Fortnite and was trash talking him.
• The 1995 martial arts movie A Dangerous Place has the hero, Ethan (played by TJ Roberts of Masked Rider), face the villain, Taylor Dylan (played by Corey Feldman), in a karate tournament. Ethan learned earlier that Dylan had been responsible for the death of his brother, driving him to fight harder and win. Dylan then makes a break for it to avoid arrest but is chased and cornered again by Ethan. The two fight again, this time without rules. Ethan trashes Dylan but decides to let him live, having the police arrest him.
• Another martial arts B-movie from 1995, Equal Impact, opens up with a beaten competitor from the Northwest Karate Tournament trying to fight the protagonist in the parking lot.
• From the The Karate Kid franchise:
  • In The Karate Kid Part II, John Kreese does this to his losing students after they were beaten by Daniel in the first movie. He yells at them and gets physical until Mr. Miyagi intervenes. Like the above 3 Ninjas example, it doesn't go well for Kreese.
  • The alternate ending to The Karate Kid (2010) remake has Master Li do the same after his students lose to Dre. Mr. Han intervenes and trashes Li in a fight, contributing to his Humiliation Conga.
• Subverted in The Mighty Ducks' second movie. A trio of players from the Hawks, still bitter about their defeat in the previous movie, spot the Ducks out and about while skating. The three set up a trap intended to humiliate the Ducks, only to encounter Fulton Reed who stops them.

• Harry Potter:
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: During the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin quidditch match, the Slytherins spend the whole game singing "Weasley is our King" to make fun of Ron. After Harry catches the snitch and wins the game for them, Crabbe immediately sends a Bludger and knocks him off the broom despite the game officially ending. And that's not counting how Draco continues to make fun of the Weasleys until Harry finally snaps and he and George proceed to beat him up, which gives Umbridge the chance to suspend them (and Fred, who would've joined in had the three Chasers not held him back) from the team for the rest of the year.
  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry wants to give this to Cormac McLaggen after the latter's showboating with a Bludger knocks out Harry (despite them being on the same team) and causes Gryffindor to lose badly to Hufflepuff. Ron tells him that the rest of the team probably beat him to it by now.
• In Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire, Ser Gregor Clegane is not pleased that he was beaten by Ser Loras Tyrell in the joust... he shows this displeasure by half decapitating his own horse and trying to kill Loras Tyrell with his greatsword. His brother Sandor saves Loras, but Gregor keeps attacking until King Robert intercedes.
• Happens in Unseen Academicals, when Andy decides to get his revenge on the book's heroes. Fortunately, Pepe knows Andy's kind, and was waiting for him.

• An episode of Criminal Minds had an unsub who was in a fight club. After losing one too many fights, he sneaks up on the man who beat him and shoots him. He enjoys the feeling of power he gets from it, so he continues attacking authority figures.
• In Jeeves and Wooster, after Barmy wins a golf game by means of a gizmo, Bertie plots to puncture his hot water bottle in the night. He gets the wrong room, and hilarity ensues.
• Superman & Lois: In the Season 1 episode "Broken Trust", Jordan, Jon, and several of their Smallville football teammates go out after winning the annual game against their rivals Metropolis High. They are then confronted by players from Metropolis who accuse them of cheating and doping before attempting to jump the small group. Fortunately, the fight is cut short when Jon is seriously injured trying to stop a punch.

• In the Formula Rejects Alternate Series, it was quite common for displeased drivers to fight other drivers or team personnel after or even during a race (after they had dropped out, obviously). This has become less common with time but still happens if the situation justifies it.

• Diddy Kong Racing: After Diddy and his friends retake Timber island from Wizpig in a decisive race for its fate, he proceeds to carpet bomb their victory party and terrorize them as punishment for defeating him, which naturally results in everyone wanting revenge on the alien hog and going to his homeworld to challenge and humiliate him again.
• Golden Sun has a battle tournament that Isaac competes in and wins. If you transfer your save data over to the sequel, the gladiators that Isaac fought will show up in the game and are still sore that they lost to a "cheater". They attack Felix (even if Isaac isn't around to exact their revenge), but they are soundly beaten by Felix's party and give you an item.
• In Jak II: Renegade, after losing the hoverbike racing championship to Jak, Errol attempts to run him down. However, Jak jumps out of the way causing the enraged Krimzon Guard commander to crash into several barrels of dark eco that Jak won, thus only hurting himself.
• The Neo Geo title Legend of Success Joe has Joe not only boxing with opponents in the ring but also fighting it out with boxers and Mooks outside of the arena in between boxing matches.
• This sort of behavior is actually encouraged in Midway's NFL Blitz and it's successor series Blitz: The League.
• During Chapter 3 in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, your final match in the Glitz Pit before going on to the major leagues is against two Iron Clefts. They are beaten thanks to Mini Yoshi's Gulp piercing their defenses. Halfway through the tournament, the Iron Clefts ambush Mario after he finished his previous fight in an attempt to beat him while he's worn down since they're still sore about losing to him earlier. Mini Yoshi again trounces them.

• Steins;Gate: After Faris defeats Shido in the Rai-Net Tournament, he sends his team to kill her and Okabe in retaliation.

• RWBY: Cinder’s team uses Emerald’s Hallucination Semblance to make Yang believe Mercury attacked her after she defeated him in the Vytal Festival Tournament so that when she attacks him in response, everyone else will see her attacking him unprovoked.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Zuko defeats Zhao in an Agni Kai duel but doesn't kill him or leave him scarred. Satisfied with his victory Zuko walks away only for Zhao to get enraged and try striking while his back is turned. Iroh intervenes and knocks Zhao back to the ground, admonishing him for his disgraceful and dishonorable display in defeat.
• Family Guy had an episode where Peter is teaching Chris how cultured Americans are and that part of that is getting way too emotionally involved in high school football. He then teaches him that sometimes your team loses and you have to beat up the referee in the parking lot afterwards. However, in the middle of the beating, Peter realizes that the referee is an old friend of his, and the two have a pleasant conversation even as Peter keeps beating the shit out of him! He even has Chris come in and say hello while taking over the beating.
• The Simpsons: Bart plays an arcade game called "Hockey Dad" loosely based on the real-life phenomenon where the parent of a player, thinking that the referee made a bad call, confronts & assaults the ref either during the game or afterwards.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): In "The Big Brawl Part 1", Master Splinter's friend D'Jinn explains to the turtles how Master Splinter is a previous Battle Nexus champion. In the finals, Splinter defeated Drako despite having been injured. However, Drako and four assassins attacked Splinter later that night, as revenge for his defeat. Drako almost killed Splinter, as well as a young Usagi when he tried to assist Splinter, but fortunately the Ultimate Daimyo arrived and saved the two, blasting Drako until he retreated, with him not showing his face since then.

• A loss from a basketball game in Houston, Texas turned deadly when someone shot and killed one of the winning players soon after.
• This trope can happen during the game, too. Manchester United star Eric Cantona took direct retribution on a heckler who was shouting racist abuse at him during the 1994-1995 season (and turned out to be a member of the National Front, an infamous far-right organisation). Cantona famously leapt into the crowd and delivered a flying roundhouse kick to the man's chest before punching him repeatedly; he was banned from all football for a year and faced a criminal investigation, being sentenced to 14 days in prison (reduced to 120 hours of community service). Man U fans still sing about this when playing Crystal Palace. Cantona, for his part, said in 2021 that he did regret it — namely, that he only wished he'd kicked the heckler even harder, a statement which does a fair job of summing up Eric Cantona.
• Former boxer James Butler gained the worst kind of infamy and an assault charge when he sucker punched Richard Grant after a match, a match that was part of a charity event for the police and firefighters that survived 9/11.
• Former New England Patriots general manager Patrick Sullivan found himself in the middle of this during the 1985 NFL playoffs when New England defeated the Los Angeles Raiders in the AFC Divisional playoffs. Sullivan had repeatedly heckled the Raiders' best pass-rusher, Howie Long, during the game; and as soon as the game ended, Raider linebacker Matt Millen decked Sullivan with his helmet after Sullivan grabbed Long by his facemask.
• Racing driver Santino Ferrucci blew his shot at Formula One in an infamous F2 post-race meltdown where he deliberately hit his own teammate after the race, then pulled out his cell phone and started texting while still driving the car.
• A popular time for a driver to express their unfavourable opinion towards another is post-race. Sometimes this is just a hard but not wreck-inducing bump. Other times it can descend into a fist-fight. In 2014, after the Bank of America 500, Brad Keselowski ended up in MULTIPLE incidents of this. Note this is all after the race has actually ended.
  • First, he tried to hook the 11 of Denny Hamlin. He failed, but after Hamlin was done his crew stayed with him to keep him calm.
  • Coming to pit road, Keselowski then got into the side of Matt Kenseth's 20. Kenseth, at this point, had undone his safety gear and was not really expecting contact.
  • While Keselowski was doing this, his car ended up rear-ending Tony Stewart's 14. Stewart, not giving a single damn about what Keselowski was thinking, threw his car into reverse and straight back into Keselowski.
  • As Keselowski was walking back between some of the car haulers, Kenseth flew in to retaliate in the manner of a WWE back-stage beatdown, albeit without the folding steel chair. The crews managed to get in and separate the two.