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Marriott-Slaterville • Barrel-chested men weighing around 250 pounds and wearing nearly half their own weight in armor ride on a stout horse at 20 mph, charging more than 5,000 pounds of force toward their opponent with a solid wooden lance — this is full-combat jousting.
"You can really get killed doing this," says Charlie Andrews, a 10-year veteran of jousting and the current world champion, who lives in Eagle Mountain.
When asked how Andrews, also known as Prince Kyllum, got into jousting, he frankly replies, "It just happened."
He rode horses and participated in rodeos growing up, then some friends told him to try jousting.
"I tried it. It was fun," he said. The rest is history.
Jodi Peterson of Sandy brought her children to the sixth annual Utah Renaissance Festival held in Marriott-Slaterville in Weber County to see the jousting tournament because they were learning about the Renaissance in home school.
"We have been studying [the Renaissance], so we thought we could come see it in real life," Peterson said. "It was really cool."
Andrews has travelled around the world, winning competition after competition. Now he has a new goal — to see the full-combat sport go pro.
"I'm pioneering it — this is my baby." Andrews said. "I'm taking this main stream to be a professional sport."
Between 11 and 15 teammates, from the likes of a former BYU football linebacker to a mixed martial arts fighter, join Andrews on his jousting troupe, the Knights of Mayhem.
Joe Ambrosius, also known as Sir Joseph, was a BYU linebacker from 1994 to 1998. He says now that the football days are past him abd he has a new opportunity to compete in a different sport.
"I'm just an extreme guy," Ambrosius said. "I love extreme sports and learning a new sport."
Ambrosius said his friend recommended that he join the team and he accepted the challenge.
"It's awesome; I love it. I love the contact," he said.
Growing up, he was also a five-sport athlete and now uses all those skills in this new sport. Ambrosius said he takes hits like he did in football, uses the balance he learned in wrestling, and focuses the lance like he did shooting a basketball at the hoop.
For the past few years, the troupe has jousted at the Utah Renaissance Festival and other festivals and competitions around the nation, but now they plan to go much bigger.
On Friday, National Geographic came to Utah to film the Knights of Mayhem as part of a series on jousting. The Knights will also host the Ultimate Jousting Championship on June 18 at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas.
Andrews says jousting is similar to mixed martial arts.
"Just like MMA, same with this [sport], we have problems here in the tent and take it out to the field and pound it out and we are brothers again."
Twitter: @CimCity Renaissance fun
The sixth annual Utah Renaissance Festival will take place Saturday and Sunday and May 20-22 in Marriott-Slaterville in Weber County. The festival has local and regional vendors and artisans who sell Renaissance-era merchandise and put on entertainment. For more information, visit http://www.utahrenfest.com. —
Watch the knights in action
Check out video of the jousting event at sltrib.com.