Arena of Death (1980)

Heroic Combat in the Fantasy World of DragonQuest

From the boxed version cover sheet:
Arena of Death places players, who assume the roles of characters, in a life or death gladiatorial combat. Drawing its combat system from SPI's popular game, DragonQuest, Arena of Death is a stand alone adventure that is perfect for introducing the novice into the realm of fantasy role-playing. Players create their own characters, arm them, and send them into the arena to face other gladiators or monsters. The game system covers character generation, maneuver and martial action, grievous injury, and asking for mercy from the crowd.

From the boxed version and Ares version rules:
Introduction - The individual combats can be played as stand-alone games or they can be played as part of a complete campaign...
Note - Arena of Death is a stand-alone adventure using the combat system from SPI's DragonQuest. As such, the game uses the counters and Tactical Display from that game. The combat system presented in Arena of Death can be adapted by using the provision of DragonQuest combat as an optional rule for this game.