Boxing clever

It is the ultimate sporting merger of brain and brawn. Simon Lewis investigates the strange new world of Chessboxing.

WHY didn’t Don King think of this before? It could be the answer to the lacklustre heavyweight division’s prayers and surely the only way to get former world champion Lennox Lewis to end his self-imposed exile from boxing and get back in the ring.

All the legendary fight promoter has to do is put a chess board in the ring and wait for the champ to come running out of retirement. Even before Lewis quit the fight game at the top of his profession, the boxer had gained a reputation as a cerebral fighter and was a well-known devotee of chess.