Connor Stewart wins Mixed Weapon title at Whose Blade Is It Anyway 2026

Connor Stewart won the Mixed Weapon division at Whose Blade Is It Anyway 2026, outlasting a 12-fighter field that asked competitors to solve more than one tactical problem in the same bracket. Stewart, fencing for Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club, finished ahead of Audrey Bidwell of Rochester Historical Fencing and Paul Schroeder of Two Ravens Fencing, with Alex Lydum of Rochester Historical Fencing taking fourth.

That result carried extra weight because this was not a standard longsword tournament. Mixed Weapon formats reward versatility, fast adjustments in the bind, and the ability to stay effective when the problem changes from one bout to the next, which makes narrow specialization harder to hide. In a compact field of 12, every match mattered, and a single loss could push a contender out of the top four just as quickly as a clean win could lift someone toward the podium.

Rochester Historical Fencing put two fighters in the top four and kept stacking results after that. Regan Brooks finished fifth, Addison Asuncion of the Rochester Institute of Technology HEMA Club took sixth, Jessica Stuber of Nickel City Longsword Academy placed seventh and Dylan Levine, also of the Rochester Institute of Technology HEMA Club, was eighth. That left four of the top eight positions in the hands of upstate New York clubs, with Rochester Historical Fencing, RIT HEMA Club and Nickel City Longsword Academy all feeding the same bracket.

The club presence around the event showed how much preparation goes into a mixed-weapon field. An Instagram post from RIT HEMA Club on March 31 said the group was practicing its binding before the Whose Blade Is It Anyway tournament, a useful clue for a division built on changing tempos and variable exchanges rather than a single familiar template. HEMA Ratings’ 2026 calendar also lists mixed-steel divisions such as Mixed Steel Longsword, Mixed Steel Sabre, Mixed Steel Single Rapier and Mixed Steel Single Sidesword, underscoring how often HEMA events now split into specialized weapon mixes instead of one fixed rule set.

Stewart’s win stands out in that environment because it came against a concentrated field where the margin for error was thin and the tactical demands were broader than a pure longsword run. The title left Pittsburgh, while Rochester clubs still accounted for four of the top six places behind him.