Well, 5 centuries ago since the known beginning? That's something like 1 tournament every 50 years, way before MK1 (with MK1 being the 10th). Seems like the MK tournament only became official when it became corrupted.

There is really no real reason or explanation. There could very well be a time limit that has to pass by in between tournaments, possibly to give the losing side time to train/produce new warriors to replace any lost in the last tournament so they wont 100% get stomped again lol

It'd be good if someone wrote up a time line n beside it they marked off certain events that have happened

MK1 takes place during the 500th year.
Goro was still Champion until Liu Kang defeated him in the 500th year.
The MK tournament is way older than 500 years, the Great Kung Lao was said to've defended Earth for a long ass time. But that may've been recently retconned, as MK was apparently instituted to stop Shao Kahn, though Great Kung Lao could've defended from Outworld a long ass time until Goro was brought in 500 years ago.
Shang lost to Great Kung Lao 550 years ago, then 500 years ago brought Goro to beat him, then took his soul after Goro beat him.
How Shang became Grandmaster of the tournament is confusing.
If he won MK, his victory would count for Earth, where he's from.
Maybe he didn't need to win to take over, as he was said to be Grandmaster, not Champion.
You only fight him as either he's angry Goro lost or to confront him to clean up the corrupted tournament, as evidenced by his match fixing in MK9.

As for being the 10th tournament, it refers to the then impending Outworld victory.
They needed 10 wins to claim Earthrealm, but they ended up losing, resetting the count.

Shao Kahn got impatient, and tricked Raiden into accepting a 1 win rule change.



Ka-Tra

1492 = Kung Lao wins, upsetting Outworld's previous streak. Outworld has to start over.

1542 = Outworld Victory 1

1592 = Outworld Victory 2

1642 = Outworld Victory 3

1692 = Outworld Victory 4

1742 = Outworld Victory 5

1792 = Outworld Victory 6

1842 = Outworld Victory 7

1892 = Outworld Victory 8

1942 = Outworld Victory 9

1992 = MK1, If Outworld wins it will be 10 in a row. Liu Kang stopped it.