Checkmate or knockout: The sport of chess boxing combines brains and brawn

This is an updated version of a story first published on Nov. 16, 2025. The original video can be viewed\u00a0here.\u00a0When we first heard about chess boxing, we thought it was a joke. Chess boxing? Could it really be a thing? Turns out, it is, and it\u0027s just what it sounds like: alternate rounds of chess and boxing. You can win by knockout or checkmate \u2013 whichever comes first. Don\u0027t laugh \u2013 this odd couple made it to the Paris Olympics as an exhibition match. Russia is the reigning champ. But as we first reported last fall, an upstart American team swung for the medals. Still think we\u0027re kidding? Come with us to the World Chessboxing Championships in Serbia.It\u0027s a quiet September Sunday in Loznica, a sleepy Balkan town in western Serbia. But inside the local sports arena, the bells are ringing for a different reason.The German comes out fast, jabbing and punching. He batters his Russian rival until a roundhouse sends him down. Fighters from 18 countries are here trying to knock each other\u0027s heads off. There\u0027s the bell. But wait, now the fighters strip off their gloves and sit down \u2013 it\u0027s chess time. Competitors have three minutes to vanquish their enemy on the board. If they don\u0027t, it\u0027s back to the slugfest for three more minutes. It\u0027s gloves on, gloves off \u2013 until checkmate, knockout or judge\u0027s decision.This is chess boxing, where knuckle meets nerd.Bill Whitaker: When you first heard about it, did you know that it was a real sport?Matt Thomas: No, I thought it was, like a "Saturday Night Live" skit. It was so absurd to me that someone would combine these two things.Bill Whitaker: I have to admit when I first heard about it, I laughed. It sounds crazy.Matt Thomas: It\u0027s the best thing about the sport. Chess is battle on a- on a board. And boxing is chess with my body. So when someone combined those two I was like, "Yes, here\u0027s my yin and yang. Here\u0027s what I was made for."Matt Thomas: Ladies and gentleman, chess boxing fans around the world thank you for being hereMatt Thomas is a chess boxing evangelist and coach of Team USA. He\u0027s built a squad of 15 American contenders from all walks of life: there\u0027s the lawyer, a Cornell math major, a military veteran. In 2018, Thomas became the first American to compete for a world chess boxing title.Bill Whitaker: And you won.Matt Thomas: And I won. Which the person who was the most surprised about that was me.Bill Whitaker: So did you win by hook or by rook?Matt Thomas: Good question. It was actually by rook, yeah.Thomas dropped out of law school and went all in. He\u0027s a promoter, commentator and fundraiser for a sport hardly anyone has heard of. No wonder. Chess boxing started out life in a French graphic novel. It was pure fiction until 2003 when it turned into fact at a real-life match in Berlin. It was an instant hit, especially in Russia. Now America is catching up, one fighter at a time.William Graif: I had the body of a chess player. I was just like a scrawny kid, you know.Meet William "Gambit Man" Graif, a New York State chess champ. He\u0027s been playing competitive chess since the age of five. We saw his take-no-prisoners approach when he demolished four of us at once \u2013 just for funBill Whitaker: "How\u0027d I get into this horrible position?"Bill Whitaker: "Checkmate"\u00a0William Graif: "Checkmate"Graif told us he added 30 pounds of muscle to become a chess boxer. He\u0027s still only 160 pounds. \u00a0Bill Whitaker: Are you scared in any way?William Graif: I would be a little crazy not to be terrified.Bill Whitaker: But why are you willingly deciding to step into a ring where you can get your head beaten in?William Graif: Yeah, you sound like my mother. One of the things is sorta the opportunity to tell my story here, of, like, a kid who played chess growing up throughout school and was to an extent ridiculed and ostracized.Bill Whitaker: For being a scrawny chess player?William Graif: Exactly. Ok, you know I\u0027ve been doing chess for a very long time. What better time to sort of try something new and challenge myself?Like his teammates, Graif paid his own way to get here. There\u0027s no prize money in chess boxing \u2013 just the warmth of your country\u0027s flag. Matt Thomas told us that was enough to unite his ragtag team against the 800-pound gorilla: Russia.Matt Thomas: We\u0027re by far the underdogs. We\u0027re coming in with the red, white and blue, trying to upset people. You know, no one thinks we\u0027re gonna do well. No one thinks we\u0027re gonna win.Bill Whitaker: The Russians are the bestMatt Thomas: By a long shot, yeah so-Bill Whitaker: But why? What makes them so good?Matt Thomas: They have it in over 500 schools and universities \u2013Bill Whitaker: Really?Matt Thomas: \u2013 where kids are growing up with chess boxing. It is their sport, their focus.\u00a0Matt Thomas:\u00a0 Making his chess boxing world championship debut, Wayne Clark:Wayne "GodKing" Clark was about to run into that Russian machine. A former Harlem Globetrotter, Clark traded hoops for the ring 11 years ago. He\u0027s got the stare down perfected. His chess? A work in progress.We first met GodKing in Times Square, where he\u0027d taken out a billboard to drum up interest in the sport. Clark told us he had one uncle who was a boxer and another who was a chessmaster.Wayne Clark: And the next thing you know the chess board would roll out, and they would be playing chess till one and two o\u0027clock in the morning. And I was just always around it. So when I heard of chess boxing I knew I was destined for it, yeah.Bill Whitaker: So chess and boxing are part of your family\u0027s DNA?Wayne Clark: AbsolutelyBill Whitaker: And have you seen this becoming more popular? More well known?Wayne Clark: Yes, you know, we\u0027ve actually are doing a chess boxing tour in schools right now. So we started this last year. And then the hope was that w...

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