- Detroit native James Canty III won the super heavyweight chessboxing world championship in Serbia
- He blended lifelong chess skills with boxing, which he picked up only three years ago
- Canty won both championship bouts by checkmate, not knockout
From a chessboard on Detroit’s west side to a boxing ring on the world stage, James Canty III has mastered a sport where thinking fast matters as much as hitting hard.
It’s called chessboxing, and Canty is the new super heavyweight world champion after winning the crown this fall.
The 33-year-old Michigander first learned chess at age eight from his father, a bond that steered him through endless games and local competitions and eventually to national master status by age 17. Boxing came more recently.
Chessboxing is a hybrid sport that combines chess and boxing in the same match. Fighters alternate rounds of speed chess and boxing. A match can be won by checkmate, knockout or by time running out in chess.
The sport was born from a 1992 French comic book and became a real thing in the early 2000s. It’s grown since then. Canty is part of Team USA, coached by Matt Thomas, the first American to win a world title in 2018. The team won multiple medals at the world championship in Serbia in October.
Bridge Michigan spoke with Canty about how he was introduced to the sport and became the reigning super heavyweight chessboxing champion. Questions and answers were edited for clarity.
How were you introduced to the sport of chessboxing?
I’m 33, and I’ve been playing chess since I was eight years old. Basically, all of my life, I’ve been playing chess. I picked up boxing three years ago.
Matt Thomas, who was the first American to win a chessboxing title, is a friend of mine that plays chess well, so he introduced me to it. I was lifting and bodybuilding, but I wasn’t really interested in boxing. Then, I started getting into film. I tried some boxing classes and thought that it was different.
I like working out and boxing was more challenging for me than picking up a weight and putting it down. So, I kept coming back and then I started getting better. I started sparring and I decided I was going to give this chessboxing thing a shot.
I really fell in love with the boxing sport, not only for what it does for your body but also a genuine love for that sport and learning the martial arts behind it. Boxing really became a second love for me. I love chess, and I love boxing. Anything you fall in love with, you can go far with.
Do you have to master both skills to play the sport?
The kind of crazy thing is, you need your “brain and brawn,” which is what people say all the time, where you actually have to win by checkmate, or you’re winning by knockout. It’s one or the other.
So you start with the chess portion first. Generally, you have three minutes of playing chess, then the bell rings, and once that three-minute timer is up, you go back into the ring and box. You can either get knocked out or live to fight another round. And, you go back and forth until someone wins by either checkmate on the chessboard or knockout in the ring.
It’s actually the best of both worlds. Some people on Team USA were brand new chess players; they didn’t know anything. They knew some of the rules but just weren’t very good. We actually have a few pro boxers on our team that have 7-0 or 8-0 records. When they get out there, even though they are a pro boxer, they still didn’t win their match because they actually lost in the chess portion. I have three years of boxing experience, and I went up against guys who had a little bit more boxing experience than me, but I was able to hold my own and land some shots.
How do you train for a chessboxing match? What are your pre-match rituals?
I trained for two and a half years before I even did any chessboxing matches. I have some exhibitions where I’m boxing real fighters and real athletes, and people that I spar with.
I’ve played blindfolded chess and can play without a board. I have 60,000 bullet games, or 60-second games on Chess.com. I just have a lot of experience, so I rarely ever lose, especially when it comes to bullet chess, so it was just another day in the office for me. I play in between lifting sets at the gym. When I’m done, I put the weights down and play two or three bullet games real quick and then go back to my next set. So, I’ve already been practicing chessboxing.
I like to listen to some tunes before a fight. I make sure I have my creatine, beta-alanine and glutamine mix. Sometimes, I’ll take a little bit of caffeine just to be powered and pumped up. I’ll say some prayers before I go in there and then that’s it.
When you fight, do you often win by checkmate or by knockout?
I won by checkmate in both my fights. The fights were not easy. In the first match, my opponent had 20 years of boxing experience, and Matt Thomas, the coach of Team USA, told me afterwards. I was able to actually catch him with a right cross. After getting out of the way, he threw a few punches. I was able to bob and weave, caught him with a right cross and he dropped. So that counts as points because I put him on the canvas. It wasn’t a knockout, but it was a knockdown, which was really big when we came back to the board here.
It was a hard fight. He was a big dude but we had a game plan. He was very aggressive, but I didn’t get knocked out, and he didn’t get knocked out either, even though I was hitting him with some mean hooks. So we went back to the chessboard, and I was able to win both times.
What’s next for you? Will you defend the belt?
Boxing is dangerous. It’s fun, but I might just retire. I’m a world champ. What do I need to keep fighting for? I don’t care to share the title. I’ll keep boxing because I love the sport itself, but I may not do any more fights. I’ve already got my medal. I really don’t need to do anything else. I’ve done it.
My focus for right now is working on chess, getting better and leveling up my title to become a grandmaster chess player. I’ll also be working with Team USA and helping them get better.
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