Hmmm....I guess we could make it were you can enter fights, sometimes for a fee and a rank. The only problem for your character would be, he would only use the in-area shops, so you would have an idea of what the shopkeeps are holding for you in the future.
but then again with the right event-weaving that could be fixed right up. Heck maybe even remove the shops, or replace them with reward areas or sumthing. Like you have to give up so many rank points ofr such-and-such wepon ^^. and then without those rank points you can't enter the match you wanted to attend, and with that wepon you can't attend the lower fights.
or we can continue brainstorming