Demarcus Schmiel

From The Great Outdoor Fight

Although he was ruled champion of the 1919 Fight, the debate remains to this day whether Schmiel or Marcus Q. Weatherby is the rightful champion of the battle. The entire Fight that year had been characterized by the presence of several foreign objects in the ring, and the final battle between Schmiel and Weatherby seemed to be something of a stalemate before Schmiel noticed a discarded and rusty screwdriver and stabbed Weatherby in the thigh with it.

Weatherby's supporters argue that the actions taken by Schmiel were strictly counter to the spirit of the fight. Schmiel's supporters point to the fact that Schmiel's actions did follow the later decision that all objects within the Acres are fair play, and further point to the fact that Schmiel won the fight afterwards, rather than using the screwdriver to simply kill his opponent. Even the organizers of the Fight expressed some apprehension about crowning either man champion, as the Fight's policies clearly state that no one crowned champion can later be stripped of that title.

Ironically, Schmiel died ten days after his victory in a wholly unrelated food-poisoning incident.