A big fixture of the original Dragon Ball was the World Martial Arts Tournament, a contest that Goku participated in thrice before eventually winning prior to Dragon Ball Z. It took a back seat for much of the latter series while the grown-up Goku's attention turned to space, the afterlife, and (to a lesser extent) fatherhood. Eventually, Goku and most of his peers would exceed the average power of a World Tournament Finalist (themselves at the time included) astronomically, to the point that what were once some of the strongest fighters on Earth are treated as a joke by the series.