Tien Shinhan or Tenshinhan is a three-eyed human introduced near the end of the Fortuneteller Baba saga in the anime. Because of his harsh upbringing, he is initially cold and heartless, thinking nothing of exploiting innocents and inflicting pain. However, Muten Roshi and Son Goku eventually help him to see the folly of his master's teachings, and he becomes their trusted ally.
22nd World Tournament[]
21-year-old Tenshinhan appears at the start of the World Tournament along with Master Shen and Chaozu. Tien has Chaozu rig the tournament so that he can observe the others and fight the people he wants to. His first match after the preliminaries is with Yamcha. Yamcha is able to put up a decent fight, but even after using an improved Wolf Fang Fist he is unable to hurt Tien. Yamcha resorts to a Kamehameha only to have it deflected back. Tien knocks Yamcha out and then breaks his leg for good measure.
He later fights Jackie Chun (secretly Muten Roshi) it is not only a physical battle, but a mental one as well he warns Tien that he is going down an evil path if he does not stop doing bad things, eventually he figures out that he is Roshi and defeats him with a Kamehameha (which he learned from watching Yamcha) causing him to forfeit the match, after the match he questions why he gave up since he still had a lot of fight in him, he responds that he's getting too old and that the one of the younger fighters will eventually take his place and that he could be the one to do it if he stops listening to Master Shen.
He eventually faces off against Goku in the finals they seem to be pretty even until Goku suddenly stops moving as it turns out Chaozu is being forced to control Goku's movements by Shen, he tells him to stop but Shen would not let him, he tells Tien that if he does not kill Goku he will kill Chaotu, it is that moment that he realizes that Master Shen was evil all along. Muten Roshi saves the day and blows Shen away with a Kamehameha. With Shen gone, the fight resumes and Tenshinhan tells Goku to forfeit but he won't because he intends to win he then tells Goku that he will destroy the fighting platform so that Goku will be forced to go out of bounds, he warns Goku that the technique he is going to use, the Kikoho, is very deadly and that no one has survived it. After using it, he is horrified that Goku appears to have died in the explosion but as it turns out he leaped up into the sky and chases Tien. The fight continues until they both go crashing down into the earth after Goku forces him to go down by launching a Kamehameha backwards. Goku hits the ground first, making Tien the winner. Tenshinhan apologizes for his action afterwards and shares the prize money, and he becomes a member of the Z warriors making him a powerful ally, starting with the King Piccolo saga which occurs immediately after these events. However after the Cell Saga he became less important.