adicted2aaCan a moment in time truly be captured? Will a camera’s lens ever capture the electricity of emotion? Can a microphone pick up energy and mood or merely the expression of it via sound waves produced from vocal cords attempting to conjure connections or create communication? When something epic happens, those who witness speak of how it felt different and I wonder if that really comes through in photos or film. Hell, is there actually anything to feel or is that just a trick we play on ourselves to try and give this life a scrap of meaning?
I will probably never get definitive answers, but honestly not sure there’s a definitive question there. Like I can’t think of a good way to describe what I mean by a moment in time, kinda hope you get it, that you’ve felt it and go yeah, I know what that is and how it differs from just a generic minute of life. What I can do though, is reference a moment, declare it as different, as containing a seed of magnificence that separates it from life’s ordinary flow, and try to explain why. I can give context, I can explain emotions I felt, and I can even try to show you the experience via my words, rather than tell, as a writing 101 class would teach.
I’d like to try that now. As I write this it’s been less than a week since Sam McQueen was “knighted” by Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 2024 Arnold Classic. It’s since blown up slightly as a viral Buhurt moment. I don’t know how viral it will go, through the entire medievalist community, into the wider combat and fitness worlds, possibly full viral and all dem normies will see it too. Or perhaps it’s stopping just beyond our world’s bonds, with people who have a 1st and 2nd Kevin bacon degrees of separation from the sport. However far it goes, I know there will be people who are missing the full context, who through not having my privileged position, are missing why this moment is a top ten all-time American buhurt moment for me, if not the top buhurt moment ever. I put this up there with the first time Mickey ran off the cage in Nashville or with the first time Team USA took the field in Poland after seeing 3 matches happen and 3 ambulances depart carrying a fighter, leaving none available for them if they fell. I rank this near the Knight Fight TV show or Shoshana coming home with Gold Medals from both the IMCF and BL World Cup. It’s a story I’ll tell time and time again, like Simon getting his skull cracked, Cat getting a nat 20 on a stealth roll to sneak through the middle of the field to get behind the Quebec team’s main line, or the lighting and hail storm during the Poland All v Alls as if Perun (think Thor/Zeus but Polish if you don’t know who that is) himself were watching in approval. This is peak American Buhurt, and I know I wasted 3 paragraphs getting here, but now it’s time for me to tell you why.
Let’s start with the common appreciation. Many people will see this, see a person in armor or with a sword, getting knighted by a celebrity. It’s a cool photo moment. The sword nerds though will see this, remember Arnold from Conan, know that Conan is the True King of Aquilonia and thus have get a bit more enjoyment. They see a man getting knighted by a king and it brings a smile of nostalgia. The buhurt bois, we are dumb fit bros, who almost universally will have an extra appreciation for Arnold as the Ur-Fitness Influencer. His willingness to engage the lifting community as a fan and fellow follower of the way of iron gives this moment a touch more meaning as the man participating is not just some Actor but both an inspiration and an athlete we respect. You add in that the fight beforehand was, if I may take a moment to hide my humility, pretty fucking rad, and that we were fucking exhausted from giving it literally all we had and this makes for a pretty great Kodak moment(gen z if you reading this, KodaK was once synonymous with cameras, back when camera’s and phones were separate gadgets and they had a commercial slogan “Kodak moment” meaning so special it had to be captured and preserved) but it still only is at best, half the story.
You see, originally this fight was not supposed to happen. Sam had come to the Arnold Classic to fight in the longsword duel tournament, which was over, and to meet the man himself. The opportunity to meet Arnold and fight for him, like gladiators of old for a Roman Emperor, was a major draw we used to recruit fighters to our potion of the event, but after 2 days of fighting it hadn’t happened yet. We knew therefore it was supposed to happen that Sunday, the last day of the event, but not when. Sam was done fighting and was hanging around to help me and one of his partners Beth, watching the fights, bullshitting with other fighters and staff, and probably hoping to get a chance to see the Govenator. Meanwhile, the planned schedule for the day had gone out the window. Something like half of the fighters who were supposed to fight in the last day’s tournament had decided to drop for a variety of reasons, injuries, need to get home, broken gear, etc etc. That left the tournament runners with some big gaps in the schedule and after the first hour-long break that got added it became clear we might run out of fights before the arrival of the guest of honor, the host and reason for the whole convention.
To ensure there were some fights ready to go for whenever Arnold showed up, the event runners started asking about having exhibition fights amongst the people already in Armor. We came up with some candidates but had a problem, all of the best fighters, the ones we would most want to fight again to make for a better show, were still fighting for medals in the tournament. We (again I put humility aside and hope I am forgiven but I do think it fair to consider myself among the best singles fighters who were at the event) were more than willing to fight extra matches, but not till we had fought all the ones that “matter” in terms of getting victory in the tournament. More than medals were on the line, but a chance to represent the US national team at the world championship in Mexico.
It should have been obvious, to ask the people not fighting that day if any of them wanted to help fill in with exhibition fights, for some reason though it was not. And so a tense hour or more goes by, with us still unsure when Arnold will be coming and whether we’ll have a top-tier fight ready to go or just an average one, or even worse, none at all. During this time, while discussing what counted as a solid blow vs a regular blow for the purposes of scoring, I remembered a distinct moment from Sam and John Mcartney’s fight two days prior, where in the middle of a very fast exchange, Sam had managed to land a heavy blow with a longsword that snapped John’s head back like head kick from Anderson Silva. Note for those unfamiliar with Armored Combat Dueling, if there are any reading this, Longsword bouts usually prioritize speed and accuracy over power in landing shots both because the profile of the blade does not lend itself to that type of blow and because scoring usually only requires a small amount of force to count with no extra points for more solid blows. Thinking on this I remarked to Sam how it was too bad we hadn’t asked him to get into armor for a filler fight because he was always an entertaining fighter and his longsword fights were as exciting as most “Pro fights.” Again for those less in the no, Pro fights are the term we most often use to refer to a style of 1v1 fights where grappling, punching, kicking, and weapon strikes are all counted as scoring, as opposed to just causing the opponent to go down or just weapon strikes, which are the other two forms because it scores everything it tends to be a much faster, dynamic, exciting fight for spectators than other forms.
Sam’s eyes light up at this, as he had not realized we were adding exhibition fights, and now he was possibly getting a chance. I will pause the narrative of the day here to talk a little about Sam as a person. Without knowing Sam, it’s hard to get the full meaning of the knighting by the man who played Conan. Sam’s been in the sport since almost the beginning of US participation and for a significant period of that, he made Sword Fighting the main focus of his life. Moved across the country to live in a yurt so he could learn from one of the best weapon teachers we had at the time and train with a team dedicated to one goal, beating Russia 1, the undisputed best five man steel fighting team. For the next 5-6 years he was one of the bigger names in the sport, due to his skill and also his personality. In a sport full of people with massive egos and adventurous lives, it can be hard to make a dent in people’s memories, but Sam is dual classed as a Bard and Fighter with as many points into Charisma as combat stats, and his style, history as a musician in the NYC metal and punk scenes, deep knowledge of military history, helped make him a stand out even before he became the clear far and away best longsword fighter in the sport.
Sam’s time in the sport as an OG and continuing placement at the top of the game makes him one of the best, and arguably few people, whose impromptu knighting could feel like it was warranted on merit. Of course, Arnold didn’t and doesn’t know that. And that was not why he agreed, but still, that adds a little more to the moment. It’s not just Sam’s place in Buhurt though that makes it so perfect. Sam is one of those rare individuals who is almost constantly earnest in his excitement and unwilling to compromise on who he is for the demands of the world. In our modern age of ironic everything the willingness to just love something for itself is, for lack of better words, punk as fuck. Which Sam also is, see the previous paragraph. One of Sam’s earliest loves when it comes to combat was Conan and it still is. In the decade I’ve known him Conan has been one of the most common topics, whether what makes the sword and sorcery genre work, how dope Frazeta’s artwork is, or the pure 80’s brilliance that was the original Conan the Barbarian.
From someone else it likely would have simply been a cool photo opportunity. For Sam though it was more. This is a man who has managed to keep his childhood dreams not only alive but thriving as he spent his life questing to fulfill the ones he could. While most of us let the responsibilities of being an adult dictate that we adopt an aesthetic of seriousness and lament the loss of joy and inability to pursue our passions, he has managed to keep the flame of whimsy well-lit through trials and tribulations. It’s not that he is an unserious person, for his training is as legitimate as any other fighter and far more rigorous than many if not most of the sport. He has a postgraduate degree and works a very normal civil service job. But that doesn’t stop him from loving knights, pirates, or barbarians with the pure love of a 5-year-old, for which I am both eternally jealous of and happy for him.
The point is for him, this was not just Arnold the bodybuilder, movie star, fitness influencer, and politician. This was as close as he could get to the hero of some of his favorite stories. He was meeting an inspiration, a representation of something close to his heart and of dear importance. If you watch this clip you can maybe see that this has meaning to him deeper than just “cool I met a famous guy” and how serious it was. If that’s not enough, he told us right after the knighting that he had sent a text to his wife claiming he would come back a Knight of Aquilonia or not at all.
And with that, it’s time to return to the story. I left us with Sam pondering if he could be able to get into armor in time and perhaps if it was worth it since we were gonna jet right after fighting meaning that would be a second wet and sweaty gambeson sharing a packed car with us for 7 hours, when there was no guarantee of fighting for Arnold, or even fighting actually. A few more fights happen and I’m talking with Steve, one of the AMCF head marshalls in case you don’t know him, and we get a notification that there’s 20 minutes till Arnold’s arrival. I see Sam so head over with the disappointing news.
“Hey sorry man, missed the opportunity, Arnold will be here in 20.”
Sam is unphased. “So if I get in kid in 20 minutes we could be on?”
“Well uh I guess, you’d have to talk to Steve and get it added to the schedule and-”
I don’t get to finish my sentence before he’s running off, calling our traveling buddy Dmitri who rounded out our trio. Note, if given the option of doing a road trip with an ex-pat Russian Linguist I highly suggest it. The two of them speed off and I think little more of it. Another fight happens and we take a slight break to make sure we have fights scheduled and are prepped for the celebrity appearance. During the break, Steve calls me over to review what’s left for schedule fights. The exact order escapes me but there were something like two or three medal matches before mine and after that the super heavyweights fights and an exhibition fight with Nick Homa. No space for Sam.
Sam happened to show up in armor right then. If he had not, it’s unclear whether we would have made the switch from me and Nick to me and Sam. And the only reason Steve came to talk to me was that I happened to be next to List and neither Nick nor I had fully committed to fighting since we didn’t know where the fight would end up in the queue. But those things did happen and Sam and I agreed to a longsword match after my fight and the super heavy-weight fight was pushed to the finale. We were past the 20 minutes we had been told we had till Arnold’s arrival and so we started up again and ran through our fights. Another 20 ish minutes go by in which I fight my medal match. Still no Arnold. D’ondre, Buhurt Obama, is working the crowd, handing out swag, talking to the audience, and trying to delay as much as possible. To no avail, we are called to list with still no real indication the inspiration for the day will make it in time. We are down to our last two fights at this point.
Steve tells us we are being given a much longer break between rounds to draw the fight out and also spends some time letting our presence in the list be a distraction keeping the crowd there for a few more minutes. Eventually, though, he calls us to the center cause if we do nothing we will lose the crowd and entertaining them is a big portion of why we get space at the Arnold in the first place. Before the fight I make my salute and touch swords, telling Sam that this is the only time I’m doing it rather than during the rounds. From Layon I’m letting it fly. Steve starts the fight and we go to work. I remember little of that round, beyond feeling it was pretty decent fighting and that I was much closer than usual to tying or winning. The round ends and we sit for our much longer break. I work on my breath trying to restore as much as possible cause even with the longer break it’s still a short time to recover.
Again Steve calls us to the center and again, there is no Arnold. We line up, and I quickly add a salute and tap, despite saying I wouldn’t because the round hasn’t started yet. As I do, I notice the security coming in the back door and desperately wave at Steve not to start the fight. That the eagle is landing and Arnold is right there! It takes his posse a minute or two to get through and get him set up. I don’t know if Steve saw it on his own or not and whether he would have started the fight, but we were 5 seconds off from the round having started before arrival, and while there was nothing saying we couldn’t have been allowed to fight a third round it was almost certainly not going to happen. We would have moved on to the hype Super Heavyweight fight as the climax of the show and the perfect exhibition for him.
For this fight to happen, at that right time, to allow Sam the opportunity to pop the question as it were, so many things needed to happen. I don’t believe in fate but it almost seemed destined the way the right obstacles moved out of the way for us and into the way of others. If we had fewer fighters drop there would have been no need for an exhibition fight. Had another set of fighters volunteered who were already in armor they likely would have had it. Had we not heard an incorrect timing Sam may not have been rushed enough to get armor on to just perfectly arrive when Steve was asking me about my fighting timing preference. If Nick and I had come to a full agreement earlier Steve might not have asked me at all. If Cyrus had stalled sooner or not stalled as much, we would not have been in the list when Arnold walked in. And… I’d like to think if it had been someone else the fight might not have been hype enough to get Arnorld to walk into the list to say hi.
And again I’d like to put aside humility for a bit, right as we get to the end of the story. Not just to talk about my skill, though I do attribute a bit to that, but to center the story on myself for a moment instead. See my first time in armor was also my first time fighting Sam. It was a random event calling together every steel fighter we could find within a day’s drive coming out simply because another fighter from Texas had shown up. There maybe a dozen of us. Back then, that was a lot and the idea of an out-of-town visitor coming was uncommon, sufficient reason to sound the horns and call the troops to battle. And so after a day of melee, in which I managed to puke and rally, we ended the day with singles cause only a few of us still had any fight left. Of that few Sam and I were the last two there and both drawn to longswords. We fought 5 rounds cause after each of us winning one round we kept tying until we collapsed too exhausted for another one.
At the end of the last round, hearing it was a tie, we both went to yield. In the end, because I had a smidge of energy I said” he wins” first cause I knew I could not do another round, but I did not realize he also could not. Sam decided to change his yielding into acceptance of victory and this started a decade-long friendly rivalry. For a few years, we traded wins but eventually, he pulled far away from me. I remained a top duelist and a threat to all the other American Longsword fighters, but have yet to claim a W against in at least 5 years. Still I have remained one of his favorite fights as he has remained one of mine and we try to always find an excuse to fight longswords everywhere we see each other. Such excuses are usually quite easy to find as travel to fighting events is most of all travel we each do. And in that time it has become quite common to hear from the crowd watching that our matches are their favorites as well. Despite the outcome not being in doubt our styles are high energy, skillful, with a lot of dynamic movement, and different enough to provide an interesting contrast that is noticeable even to people without knowledge of sword fighting.
In 10 years there has hardly been a significant moment in American Buhurt one of us was not at. A handful at most. Over 10 years we have been building up a rivalry, history, and stylistic fighting style that I believe is unmatched in the States. We always strive to get our fight and yet our brackets had not led to us fighting in duels in that tournament. Last minute though this fight appeared. And of course, it did. It always should have been me to have been his opponent at that moment, for me to be sharing the list as two of his great loves came together to make a show-stopper movement that cannot be repeated. And up to the weekend before Arnold, I was not sure I was going. The previous two events had hit my bank account far more than I had expected or could afford. My girlfriend Meaghan basically demanded that I figure it out though, rather than miss the event and be mad at myself. As I argued we couldn’t afford it, she argued that that’s never stopped me before. It was close but I yielded to my inner desires and her knowledge of them with only days before needing to leave for the tournament.
And so Wednesday after work I drove 7 hours, to crash on a couch at Sam’s place. The next day we drove another 7 hours, discussing art, history, Russian Literature, fighting, and of course, Conan. 2 more days of fighting and hanging that somehow perfectly led to the climatic moment that adds a capstone to a decade of our fights. It was minutes after he left and we were left in wonder over the fact it all came together and that moment actually happened, that I imagined Sam sitting there looking at me across a Marshall’s stick, waiting for that last round to start with still no appearance of the True King of Aquilonia forthcoming. Inside his helm, the litany begins
“Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad, why we fought, or why we died. “
There would be just enough time before the round begins.
“No, all that matters is that two stood before many, that’s what’s important. Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request.”
Here the head would bow, eyes would close as he asked for the chance to perform and entertain the man who had performed for and entertained him. To hopefully inspire the physical representation of a lifetime’s inspiration, into an act of charity and grace. Behind him, that man would be appearing, ready to see what all the fuss his team had been bothering him with was about. The helm would come up and we’d be ready to begin.
“ And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!”
.
.
.
.
Of course, that is probably not what happened, but like the rest of everything was perfect enough that I feel it belongs anyway. The point is, it’s not just a cool camera moment, this was a celebration and culmination of a decade of work chasing a dream most would not have the courage to admit let alone follow.