The Thousand Year Tournament: 1 (Utopian thesis)

Gerry Caldwell is a normal man who finds he is forced into a tournament the last bastion of violence in an otherwise peaceful world where he has to fight and kill in order to both survive and protect his family. During the course of the book the Tournament propaganda unfairly paints him as a villain to boost ratings and turns him into a hated figure. As the competition ends he finds his survival comes with consequences he had not anticipated leaving him bereft of all he loves and forcing him into life changing decisions.