Chess Boxing: Time for Revenge - Russakoff Rules Sports

Nerds, remember back in high school when the jocks gave you wedgies and put gum in your hair? Jocks, remember how you were always jealous of the nerds' grades? No? OK, you know how all the nerds in high school now make 200 times your annual salary?

Well, now it's time for revenge...every other round.

The new sport that's taking Europe by storm: Chess Boxing.

Yes...it's exactly what it sounds like. Two combatants climb into a ring and then switch back and forth between a chess match and a boxing match.

Stop laughing.

"It's the No. 1 thinking game and the No. 1 fighting game," said Iepe Rubingh, the sport's 32-year-old founder.

Rubingh's inspiration was "Cold Equator," a 1992 French comic book in which two heavyweight boxers beat each other's brains out for 12 rounds and then play a 45-hour game of chess.

"That's not functional. So I thought about how it could work," Rubingh said.

It's that kind of complex, logistical thinking that makes Rubingh a top challenger in his sport.

Read the entire AP article on chess boxing here.


What do you think? Could you do it? Does chess boxing have a future? Comment here.

Message Edited by Lee_Russakoff on 07-16-2008 03:54 PM