Mod that encourages more battling?

This was my favourite childhood game and I come back to it every few years, but my latest run has mostly killed my enthusiasm to play again. I played more optimally, with my second monster winning the major 4 in the minimum possible tournaments. Even though I didn't even start the monster on the no rest method for its first year, it still did this before the first retirement warning...

To make things worse, all the fights except the final 4 tournaments were complete walkovers, and even the major 4 are just not really fun as they are ended in 2 attacks either way, it's just that there's some risk of me also getting two hit...

I think the most interesting combat is around the C-A rating range which is just basically entirely skipped.

So yeah, is there any existing mod that incentivises fighting more? I'm thinking lower fixed penalty on entering fights, maybe more stat rewards on battle, stat rewards scale with life stage so you can fight during prime, lower training gains to compensate, maybe higher cost mint/nuts.

If there isn't I was trying to think of self imposed rules, but I can't think of anything too great...maybe no buying from shop?