Choxing? Or is it Bess?

Have you heard?? There’s a new sport that everyone wants to be playing! (Well, at least everyone in Germany) Like everything else that’s being invented these days, it is a hybrid. It combines boxing with chess. Weird, right? The two or nothing alike, but nevertheless, the sport has gained popularity in Germany. The sport is comprised of 5 rounds of boxing with a normal chess game. Players switch between boxing and chess, taking boxer gloves on and off in between rounds in order to move the board pieces without disturbing others. It’s a brains AND brawls match!

Apparently, the invention of the sport was inspired by a comic book. In “Cold Equator,” a 1992 French comic book, two heavyweight boxers beat each other’s brains out for 12 rounds and then play a 45-hour game of chess. Obviously the sport has been altered for reality purposes. This is how the game is scored:

• if you knock out your opponent first, you are the victor and the chess match is over
• if you beat your opponent at chess first, you are the victor and the boxing match is over
• if there is a draw in chess, then whoever has the most points at the end of boxing wins

Sounds somewhat simple. It sounds like a good mix of intellect and muscle, plus it creates a little more excitement in the chess game other than: “Oh my gosh, he just moved his bishop to D14!” It is a little weird, but still the beginning of what could become a great past time. A sport like this creates the need for competitors to be athletic and intellectual, utilizing & stimulating separate areas of the brain at the same time. Not that athletes are not intellectual, many are very smart, but sometimes being book smart and being common sense smart do not go hand in hand.

This hybrid sport kind of reminds me of the movie Heavy Weights, when the two camps have that academic/athletic triathlon thing. Except in this sport – choxing/bess, whatever you want to call it – only one player goes through a circuit rather than switching. Now that I think about it, this is a really great concept. Competing in a sport like this requires one to be well-rounded in all areas. They should make a game show where you have to answer trivia in different areas and then do some type of physical activity. It would be like mashing all of the elements of GUTS, Double Dare, and Legends of the Hidden Temple all together … it would be the ultimate game show! Those were the good game shows, back in the day on old school Nick.

Not only would this sport encourage well-roundedness in today’s youth, but it would also show viewers that it’s okay to be macho man and library boy at the same time. You don’t have to hate school if your a jock, and you don’t have to hate sports if your into books, too. Plus, the sport sounds fun. I would give it a try, if I was strong enough to hold those gloves up for more than one round!