Boxing and chess? Good combination?

[Chris Nagel]

The revelation of strategy

mostly i would learn from every tape and every silent film i saw and not from any one boxer. the mystery of the sport is hidden inside every bout you see from leonard, dorin to barney ross. you must look closely.

but i am reminded now of the time when as a boy i met the profoundest chess player that there was around my way. whenever i would play him he would violently tear me to shreds with an ominous kind of calm that i had only seen at the end of old west shoot out movies. he was sharp. even in times that i had captured more of his material and was (at least i assumed so) in the seat of power - maybe a rook here, a few pawns there, perhaps even his queen - he would out of nowhere swoop down like a deadly hawk and defeat me every time without fail. for a while i used to think he was some kinda cheat -- i mean how does he suddenly beat me as easy as he does even when i would seem to be ahead -- but the man was no cheat, he was simply that sharp. i only played him a few times and never saw him after those bombardments but the questions of how he did this to me would spin around in my mind for years. i would later come to find that in truth every move that i would make was not made by me but instead by him. yes i would take my bishops or whatever and move them around myself but only ever because he would draw me out to do so. he would leave open say a rook for me to take from him (and i would like a dummy) or put a bishop in the line of my queen to make me move around my pawns in front to make her safe (and i would like a dummy) and by way of this he would deliberately manipulate my distribution of material to ultimately make a defensive lapse for that one final blow. every move i made was shepherded by his invisible hand and he would walk me into invisible traps i had no idea were even there. this lesson i would translate to boxing but also for the many other facets of life. because truly life is like boxing and boxing is truly like chess. this i think is the real prize to take from the sport, not the fame or money, but the revelation of strategy.

Point and Counterpoint

Boxing is a game of point and counterpoint- move for move like a chess match. All great fighters are great counterpunchers, even those that seem to be always going forward and pressing the action. There are a few reasons for this, chief among them that it is very hard to hit and hurt a guy that is defensive and looking not to be hit and hurt. It is also difficult to walk straight to somebody, through his hands and their abilities, while it can be comparatively easy once the avenue is opened.
Take Tyson at his peak as an example; the book on him was to jab and move, keep him on the outside. That would have been suicidal as there is one thing a very short heavy learns and learns well its to slip a jab. Coupled with Tyson's speed of foot and the way he cut the ring and punched he'd have walked through the jab. Holyfield fought him perfectly (?!!!!) by offering a jab and then landing a hook, uppercut or right as tyson tried to come in, and then tying up. Tyson began to wait out there and got picked apart. His error was in not anticipating the second punch- the one that would land-and making provisions for avoiding it.
So the whole point of this is to toss around ideas on how you would make somebody react as you would want them to react. Suppose you are trying to get inside a tall jabber or a mover, or away from a slugger. If one of them is a 6'3" heavywt with a 78" reach, good jab, right, doesn't fight much inside (holds and slaps) or work the body, moves pretty good but isn't Ali. The other guy is 6'1" and about 212 (17lbs lighter than the first guy) a good boxer and sharp puncher, fights equally well inside and out, moves well a good all around fighter. Call it Sharkey v. Pinklon Thomas

[Xwetie]

This is really interesting, hard to catch up with the numbers on the chessboard though!