Battle royal (; also royale) traditionally refers to a fight involving many combatants that is fought until only one fighter remains standing, usually conducted under either boxing or wrestling rules. 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 specific meaning, depending on the sports being discussed. Outside sports, the term battle royale has taken on a new meaning in the 21st century, redefined by Koushun Takami's 1999 Japanese dystopian novel Battle Royale and its 2000 film adaptation of the same name. This new meaning of "battle royale" refers to a fictional narrative genre and/or mode of entertainment inspired by the film, also known as death games and killing games, where a select group of people are instructed to kill one another until there is a triumphant survivor. Sports Historical uses The label of "battle royal" has been applied to several events. In the 1700s in the United Kingdom, some 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. The practice eventually fell out of favor in the United Kingdom, but it continued in the American colonies. Lower-class whites who lived in the backwoods practiced the "free-for-all" as well as "rough-and-tumble". The practice also spread to American slaves, 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." While a few masters sanctioned slave boxers (as shown in the 2012 film Django Unchained), this practice appears to have been rare, as slaveholders generally did not wish to damage their property. The majority of these events were run by the slaves themselves for their own amusement. After the American Civil War, the battle royal entered a popular phase, but such events were 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 people, unlike the pre-War entertainment within the enslaved community. A battle royal was a frequent "opener" event for boxing and