Chess Boxing Is Precisely as Absurd as It Sounds

Remember the first time you figured out that peanut butter and jelly paired well together, or that you could put ranch dressing on practically anything to spruce up its taste? Yeah, this is nothing like that. 

Uproxx's Brandon Stroud spotted the video posted above, which features a couple of men locked in a fierce battle of chess boxing. 

Now the athletic mashup is exactly what it sounds like, sort of. I initially thought you were allowed to punch your opponent directly in the kisser the moment you successfully took one of his pieces, an idea I hope gets to whatever official body sanctions this sport. 

Instead, it seems that the two boxer/chess players alternate between pummeling one another in the ring and sitting down for a nice sophisticated and not entirely sweat-free game of chess. 

The YouTube title has us assuming the bout takes place somewhere in Russia. The only other real information we have in the video comes in the form of the interview with an unidentified man who has high hopes for the sport. 

He states, as transcribed by ruptly.tv, "Of course, like any sport, we want to become Olympic. Maybe in 14 years, we can become Olympic. We are trying hard there are organizations now from China, India, Iran, Russia, Italy, Germany, UK and the United States."

The assumption is the speaker is an official head of the sport. Anyone with knowledge of the specifics, please help us remedy our lack of his name in the comments section below. 

Now we would be foolish to toss this all aside as crazy. A BBC report from Dec. 3 states the sport is seeing a rise in popularity in India. 

The report cites Iepe Rubingh, president of the Berlin-based World Chess Boxing Organisation (WCBO), who proclaims 13 countries have embraced the sport. 

Some of us have merely taken to fisticuffs when a game of Monopoly goes awry. Apparently, some big dreamers have taken that a giant leap further in combining brawn and brains. 

While it seems more entertaining to see two boxers go at it for 12 rounds without having to take a chess break, we certainly encourage any combination of sports. That could be our undying love of the film Baseketball speaking. 

Who knows? If the sport introduces psyche outs, we are all in. 

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