And wikipedia seems to think that the disconnected fights dictated by earthrealm WAS the tournament, which was my original impression of the movie but that doesn't make any sense either. It says "Cole proposes a plan to force Outworld's champions into single combat with Earthrealm's champions before neutralizing Sub-Zero together, forcing the tournament Shang Tsung tried to prevent" And I remembered a line like 'we'll give them a tournament' or something before the teleportation but it just made so little sense that I left feeling very unclear on if I was supposed to believe the tournament had occurred or not.