An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Single combat is an old tradition, going back thousands of years. In ancient times, when two armies were prepared for battle, sometimes only one man from each army would fight, thus sparing the lives of the remainder of the armies. In the last several hundred years, single combat has become formalized and stylized, giving us such sports as boxing and fencing, and games such as chess or checkers. The demands of each of these disciplines are very different, but they all share in common the idea of a formal, stylized ritual battle between single combatants.

So, what happens when you start combining these into a single competition? You get ... Chess Boxing! I'm not kidding:

The basic idea in chessboxing is to combine the #1 thinking sport and the #1 fighting sport into a hybrid that demands the most of its competitors – both mentally and physically.
In a chessboxing fight two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing. The contest starts with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on. In every round of chess the FIDE rules for a "Blitz game" apply, in every boxing round amateur boxing rules apply with the following extensions and modifications: In a contest there shall be 11 rounds, 6 rounds of chess, 5 rounds of boxing. A round of chess takes 4 minutes. Each competitor has 12 minutes on the chess timer. As soon as the time runs out the game is over.

A round of boxing takes 2 minutes. Between rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The contest is decided by: checkmate (chess round), exceeding the time limit (chess round), retirement of an opponent (chess or boxing round), KO (boxing round), or referee decision (boxing round). If the chess game ends in a stalemate, the opponent with the higher score in boxing wins. If there is an equal score, the opponent with the black pieces wins.

Here is some video from the first World Chessboxing Championship:



Hey, if poker is now considered a spectator sport broadcast on TV, then why not Chess Boxing?