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Friday, March 29, 2024

Knight fights dirty in Medieval Faire jousting contest

His steed is brushed.

The lances are prepped.

And before he puts on his armor, Sir William Dudley grabs his iPhone and cranks up the volume of his favorite heavy metal song.

While “The Other Side” by Unsun wails over the speaker in his tent, he swings open a case the size of a Buick’s trunk and hauls out the components of his armor. The shoe polish smell of oiled metal fills the tent as he pieces his suit together.

Among the helmets, swords and spare lances scattered around the tent are a Coleman cooler, a bottle of sunscreen and a crumpled up McDonald’s bag.

He’s geared up and ready, but he’s not a knight yet.

Inside the tent, he’s David Schade, the 34-year-old former UPS employee who ran away with the Renaissance 12 years ago.

It was 1999, and he was working as a part-time actor in the Great Lakes Medieval Faire and Marketplace in Geneva, Ohio, when he met up with some of the jousters.

Maybe it was the grade-school history classes or the Errol Flynn movies. But when they mentioned an open spot, he was in.

“Once I got involved with this, it was like ‘I’m never coming back,’” he said.

And he didn’t.

He called his roommate at his Palm Beach apartment and told her to put all his belongings in storage. When his next shift with UPS rolled around the following week, he was already on the road to the next fair.

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From there, it was horse training, 46 weekends of shows a year, and all the bumps and bruises he could take.

But most of his injuries aren’t from the closet-rod-sized length of oak barreling at his chest at locomotive speeds. He got used to the wrenched ankles, twisted knees and ruptured disc in his back. It’s the small things that get him.

The index finger on his left hand lacks its middle knuckle. What started as a nick from a sword during practice became a swollen, infected wound. The infection spread to his bone and had to be removed. He was off the horse for 10 weeks.

Last summer, after a 10-pound addition to his 130-pound suit of armor, he strained his already-present hernia, pulled his groin and threw out his back in a month.

He hides those under bandages and back braces when he suits up.

When he passes through the tent’s door flap, on go the helmet, the British accent and superhero demeanor.

Atop  his 16-year-old Clydesdale, Christine, he’s somewhere between Santa Claus and a firefighter to his waist-high fans.

“The great thing is the magic isn’t dead for them,” he says.

Now, he’s trotting around the jousting field on Christine. Time to jeer the crowd; give them something to “huzzah!” for.

He faces the stands, full of fans cradling turkey legs, swords and bottles of root beer.

“Now, my friends, you wish victory, and do you care how?” he asks his audience.

“No,” they chime back.

He cocks his head to the side and appears to swoon.

“I think I’m in love.”

The crowd giggles.

And so begins the 30-minute, metal-fisted  slobberknocker. At one point, he jumps off the horse to clobber his enemy — a move straight out of professional wrestling.

Schade is no stranger to that. Under the most recent name, Lance Michaels, he’s been competing in independent pro wrestling matches around the country almost as long as he’s been jousting.

That’s where he learned to play the character of Sir William. He describes him as “a guy with a chip on his shoulder, and he wants everyone to know it.”

By the end of the show, the crowd is still screaming for Sir William, who has gone from the losing jouster, to the vengeful cheater, to the show’s champion.

Still in his battle gear, he takes off his helmet and lumbers toward the stands. The crowd circles him, plopping one- and five-dollar bills into his waiting helmet.

Some corral him for pictures. Others conduct post-fight interviews.

A boy walks up — a tin-foil sword in one hand, his mommy’s hand in the other.

“Why do you fight so dirty?” he asks.

Sir William looks down at the boy.

“So I can win, duh.”

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