A lot of people in the Dragon Ball fandom wonder how and why nobody remembers the events of the King Piccolo arc or who the Red Ribbon Army was or who Goku and the rest of the tournament martial artists are by the time Cell and Buu show up.
They forget that Piccolo’s reign of terror lasted all of one day and the tournaments were much smaller in scale and didn’t become this big business until Mr. Satan turned it into one. By the time the Cell Games started, a good 10 years have passed since the 23rd tournament. 13 years since King Piccolo’s rule and death. 16 years since the destruction of the RR army.
Can you remember who the big name fighters in UFC or kick boxing or whatever were 10 years ago, much less know what they look like? Do you remember or even know about any incursion, invasion, regime, terrorist army, whatever from 13 years ago without looking it up? No? Thought so.
Then you have Mr. Satan basically telling the world that all those previous tournaments with energy beams, Oozarus, werewolves, explosions, flying etc. were nothing but parlor tricks and not true martial arts. That he and his breed are the real deal and its no wonder the general populace was clueless and utterly ignorant of it all. Goku and co not being in the public eye all those years didn’t help.
We like to joke how dumb the people in Dragon Ball are, but this isn’t the case when it comes to the Mr. Satan scenario.