By Patrick Lockren
From the offset we were told multiple times by our higher ups to not go, how dangerous it was, how there was not going to be any support for the trip.
To me, this trip represented the culmination of over three years worth of hard work and experience. Ever since I heard about steel fighting it has been my dream to compete internationally and be recognized as a USA knight. For that reason I was not going to let this go without a fight.
The weeks leading up to IMCF I worked to pressure people into making it a thing and had to convince knights who had been many times before me that it was still worth it. Many didn’t care or had personal reasons to not make the trip, however there were a few who still believed in what it represented. We were able to bring forth a skeleton crew of about eight fighters who would stand and represent the United States.
The real test was FitCon in Salt Lake City.
We eight had never fought as a unit before and we were to show our nation (fighters and non members) what our mettle was. We were thrown like meat to the wolves, facing off against experienced teams with no coaching and very few subs, still we fought our hearts out. Many of our bouts we won, but almost each round we lost a man due to injury. Looking back on the tapes you can see that every fighter in the USA tabard had no quit in them. We were beaten, bruised, broken and still fought to the last man, to the point where we were told to get off the field. Against those orders, we still fought on. Many who watched us thought we were a joke, and I believe they still do, however we had the gall to continue on against all odds.
Jump cut to Ukraine.
All the rumors, all the propaganda held no weight once we arrived in country. While many of the countries were surprised at the lack of fighters, we were still given the respect owed. Personally, I forged many friendships and experienced what it meant to walk on to the field with the world watching. We fought, we fell, we got back up. We didn’t medal (hell, we didn’t make it out of our pool), but it was one of the most calm and brotherly experiences I’ve had. If ever I’m asked to don the tabard again, I will without question.
Ukraine, to me, was life changing. Having crossed many oceans and seen many countries before there is no rival to the world championships for armored fighting. The trust I put in my friends on the field and the experiences I had while at IMCF will stay with me the rest of my life.
