Chess-box tournament makes move into pay-per-view ring
The two sports can both lay claim to thousands of years of heritage, one originating in India in the 6th century AD, the other dating back as far as the 7th century BC in the Olympics of Ancient Greece.
But the fusion of chess and boxing into the hybrid sport of “chessboxing” has provoked controversy as its supporters prepare to host the first payper-view event next weekend.
Devotees of the “game of kings” have decried chessboxing as a “freak show” and a “hoax” that combines “bad chess and worse boxing”.
Created by Iepe Rubingh, the Dutch performance artist, 17 years ago, chessboxing is seen as the ultimate test of brains and brawn by its fans. Participants typically compete over 11 rounds in total with six alternating rounds of chess and five of boxing, each lasting just three minutes. Victory is achieved via knockout or checkmate. If neither occurs, the winner will be determined on points scored in the ring.
Gavin Paterson, the organisation’s chief financial officer, says chess purists should embrace chessboxing as a novel way of encouraging newcomers. “Chessboxing makes chess sexy, I think it definitely benefits chess as it gives it a profile that is more appealing to younger people and to women,” he said.
“The chess games are real, the boxing is real, there is no staging, we don’t prepare the fighters, there is no scripting so it is a genuine sport. It deserves to become an Olympic sport.”
However, with cabaret acts performing between fights and competitors given wrestling-style theatrical personas, its promotional antics have drawn criticism from chess purists.
Justin Horton, a chess player and writer for the influential Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog, said: “Chessboxing is a freak show. Sports normally have clubs, professional performers, proper organising bodies, that sort of thing. Chessboxing has none of these. Rather than aim for the highest standards, as a real sport does, they combine bad chess and worse boxing. Basically the whole thing is a hoax, and nothing the gang does should be taken seriously in any way.”
In 2014, Terry Marsh, the undefeated former world champion boxer, became the first professional boxer to compete in chessboxing, maintaining his perfect record over three bouts. A keen amateur chess player since childhood, Marsh said: “A lot of people unfamiliar with boxing would see it as brute force and ignorance which it isn’t, there is subtlety in boxing.”