The first MK was a tournament, the 2nd was a forced tournament in outworld formed by loophole found by Shao Kahn, if Rayden refused to particpate, it would be viewed as a forfeit and defeat. MK3 was a war because of Kahn invading earth through yet another loophole. MK4, not sure what it was, A fallen God trying to obtain an amulet to rule all realms(i think). MK5 was a an overthrow of both Kahn and the murder of Lui Kang. I'm not sure of this was a tournement or another good/evil thing. My point is:

It needs to go back to the traditional tournement, it is a fighting game ya know. They should go back to the old or new island that's neutral in between the 2 realms. I also believe this is the reason we've gotten so many bum characters over the past few series. It's just wars and ridiculous characters, nobody real. I'd like to see something like: because of Sonya and Jax, the gov't now knows about the tournement's importance and specially trains a fighter every couple years to compete and help ensure earth doesn't get taken over. Or just normal people being recruited and or signing up for it. Chinese gangs could also get involved hired to off people that are at the tournement kinda like the Lin Kuei. Since the outworld needs 10 victories in a row, it's kinda been reset. So, they should have a new host, possibly even a good guy(one of earth's fighters) as the boss, whoever was champion last. Or they could go back to having a new champion from outworld other than shang tsung, who would appoint his own subbosses for competing in the tournement for shang tsung. Maybe Kahn would hire people from a different realm other than the neather, earth, or outworld since his 'fighters' can't seem to do the trick and he's fed up with them. I hope MK6 isn't just a rehash of mkda, i hope it's an actual tournement like the first one.