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Chess Boxing: Is this a joke?

The Comic Book that inspired a sport

A good explainer video:

Chess boxing (or Chessboxing) is a hybrid “sport” that combines the brawn of boxing with the brains of chess. Inspiration from Enki Bilal's comic book Froid Équateur by a Dutch fine artist named Lepe Rubingh in 2003.

The Wu-Tang Clan brought Chess boxing into popular consciousness for the first time in 1993, when they released the song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'".

The match starts with a 4 minute speed round of chess. Then a minute to transition to a 3 minute boxing round. Then chess - then boxing, for 11 rounds. (with six rounds of chess, five rounds of boxing and a 1-minute break each round)

A winner is determined when one guy either gets knocked out, or one guy gets checkmated. Judges decide a draw.

Typically, events are held in a standard boxing ring using standard amateur boxing equipment and rules.

Sounds crazy…at first. After watching a few of these rounds on video, it is quite intriguing and fans love it. The first matches were held in Berlin, and Amsterdam. Then spread to London.

The World Chessboxing Association (WCBA) (motto: “Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board”) was founded in 2013 and was the governing body of Chessboxing. I say was, because it looks like there aren’t any live websites for the association. And most of the Googled links have gone silent.

However this video is from London in 2020, and the Chess Boxing Nation website from London seems to be up and running: ChessBoxingNation

A recent article (2018): Chess Boxing Offers a Way Out of Poverty for Young Women in India

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Todays article was a bit different. Interesting to me, and hopefully to you. There are some weird sports (?) out there. For example:

• Baby Olympics — a competition for children aged between two and four years, competing in athletics, gymnastics, football, basketball, and weightlifting.

• Ba Game — a version of Medieval Football played in Scotland, a type of Mob Football where two parts of a town have to get a ball to their respective sides.

• BossaBall — a mix of volleyball, football (soccer), and gymnastics with music, capoeira (an Afro-Brazilian martial art), and Brazilian beach culture

• Bottle Kicking — teams try to move a small keg containing ale across fields to streams which are located one mile apart, moving it by any means possible.

• Camel Wrestling — two male camels against each other.

• Car Curling — just like Olympic curling, but with cars.

• Dog Surfing — dogs are trained to surf on surfboards

• Elephant Soccer — riders on the back of elephants direct them to play football/soccer

• Extreme Ironing — Clothes ironing in bizarre places like while skydiving and on top of telephone booths and mountaintops

• Face Slapping — Two men (of any size) take turns slapping the sense out of each other until one taps out or gets floored. Knockouts come fast and furious.

• Fireball Soccer — soccer with a ball on fire

• Kick Volleyball — Imagine playing volleyball with no hands. All you can use are your feet, knees, chest, and head to touch the ball.

• Lawn Mower Racing — Racing riding lawn mowers around a dirt track

• Lingerie Football — American Football played by women wearing lingerie as uniforms

• Paper-Scissors-Rock World Championships

• Running of the Nudes — alternative to the Pamplona bull run.

• Shin Kicking — kick the other guys straw padded shins

• Toe Wrestling — battle of the big toes.

• Two-Handed Tennis — a variation of the popular game, a racket in each hand.

• Underwater Hockey — also known as Octopush. While there is no fighting in underwater hockey, the game has plenty of action pushing a hockey puck into an opponent’s goal along the bottom of a pool.

• Unicycle Football — a variation of American football in which players move around the field using a unicycle

• Volcano Surfing — athletes ride downhill on slopes that are covered with volcano ash using a surfboard

• Zorb Ball — rolling down the hill in an inflatable ball

And you say your life is boring. C’mon, get out there and try something new :)

Thanks to subscribers. As always, comments are encouraged.