I always thought of Street Fighter 2 as being a 7 round tournament, with a 3 round playoff against high Shadowloo officers culminating in a fight with M. Bison at the end. It's just that you don't see the brackets or any of the other 120 contestants.
Mortal Kombat, I felt, broke the illusion by showing you this linear schedule. Perhaps you can suspend belief by saying that the schedule is just a visualization of what Raiden has forseen as Johnny Cage's fate.