This weekend an event in Calgary is being promoted called “The Canadian Knightfall Championships“.
Never heard of this? Basically people dressed in full armour with weapons bludgeoning each other. Have a look at the below tweet for reference.
Is this legal? Let’s break things down.
Like with any novel ‘combat sport’ in Canada the ‘prize fight’ provisions of the Criminal Code need to be looked at. Leaving the weapons aside the above clip clearly shows competitors striking each other with armoured fists.
Section 83 of Canada’s Criminal Code outlaws all ‘prize fights’ (basically pre arranged fights unlike a spontaneous fight that may occur in a hockey game) and then sets out the framework for exceptions to this default position. A prize fight is defined as “an encounter or fight with fists, hands or feet between two persons who have met for that purpose by previous arrangement made by or for them“.
When it comes to ‘professional’ prize fights the Code only mentions two sports that can be allowed. Boxing and MMA. There is past precedent interpreting ‘boxing’ in the Criminal Code as meaning the sport as envisioned under the Queensbury Rules making a bout like this one arguably outside the scope of what could be permitted as a variant of boxing.
No Canadian Court, to my knowledge, has yet interpreted MMA. MMA has no universal ruleset. With variations as far as some US jurisdictions calling bare knuckle boxing a type of MMA. Some Provinces and their Athletic Commissions interpret MMA to also include all the component sports that make up MMA (for example this is how BC went on to legalize pro kickboxing). You would be hard pressed to say armored and armed knight fights are one of the underlying combat sports that make up MMA. If a Court refused to find that knight fights, as a stand alone combat sport, is neither boxing or MMA then such an event would violate the Criminal Code.
In the odd event that knight fighting could be jammed into the interpretation of MMA under the Criminal Code then the overseeing athletic commission would need authority to authorize such a fight.
It is unclear if this event is being overseen by an athletic commission or is being self regulated but either way there are legitimate questions about whether the section 83 of the Criminal Code is triggered here.
Combat Sports Law 