FM James Canty III is the Super Heavyweight Chessboxing World Champion after winning two chess-and-boxing bouts in the 7th World Chessboxing Championships in Loznica, Serbia. He ducked and weaved in the ring and was just too fast for his opponents on the chessboard—using under a minute for both his games as he won on time and then by resignation in the final showdown.
Unlike the celebrity Mogul Chessboxing Championship in 2022 that featured matchups such as GM Aman Hambleton vs. IM Lawrence Trent and WGM Dina Belenkaya vs. Andrea Botez, the world championship featured fewer household names, but one stood out. 33-year-old streamer and commentator Canty wrapped up the event by winning the final clash.
On the surface, chess and boxing are very different sports, but they’re both one-on-one struggles. As 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov put it in a documentary about his preparation to play the 1975 match that never happened against 11th World Champion Bobby Fischer:
A chess player lands blows, to put it bluntly, blows to the head. It’s much tougher than physical pain. The loss of a game is a deeper blow than to the face or head in boxing. It’s something more internal. Externally everything passes quickly, maybe there’s a bruise, or maybe not even that. Inside, it’s very hard to take, and again, if someone’s focused only on chess then it’s much, much more difficult for him.
The loss of a game is a deeper blow than to the face or head in boxing.
—Anatoly Karpov
It’s a debatable point.
Just tried chessboxing. I can confirm punches hurt more than blunders pic.twitter.com/oBCXCScURk
— Chess.com (@chesscom) September 25, 2025
The initiator of chessboxing as a sport is considered to be Dutchman Iepe Rubingh, who set up the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO) in Berlin, Germany in 2003 after being inspired by a comic by Frenchman Enki Bilal that featured a 12-round boxing match between heavyweight boxers followed by a 45-hour game of chess.
The format for the World Chess Boxing Championships, that ran September 23-29, was a little different. The players competed in alternating three-minute rounds of chess and boxing, where the clashes could be ended on the spot by a checkmate or a knockout, while otherwise time and points could come into play. For the Semifinals, where Canty faced the reigning champion, Sayan Shayakhmetov from Kazakhstan, the players started with four minutes 30 seconds on their clocks, with no increment.
You can watch the full match below with commentary by former Chessboxing World Champion, streamer, and founder of United Chessboxing Matt Thomas, whose CV includes teaching WFM Anna Cramling some boxing skills!
Canty played fast, but dangerously!
11…Ng4? invited a bishop sac on f7, with a knight capture on e5 if Black takes the bait. White would emerge two pawns up, but Shayakhmetov hesitated and found himself down almost a minute and a half on the clock when he played the meek 12.Bf2. When the Kazakh player then blundered an exchange it was over, at least in chess terms.
With a winning position and an almost two-minute time advantage Canty had everything under control, but he still had to face his opponent in the boxing ring. Shayakhmetov dwarfed his American rival, and looked very dangerous. In fact, during the tense three-minute boxing round both players almost found themselves on the floor, but Canty managed to dodge most of the haymaker punches.
The skill at evading trouble wasn’t an accident, however. In a podcast with Greg Mustreader, Canty revealed he trains regularly with real boxers of all shapes and sizes. He described his style:
I have a Mike Tyson build, but I have longer arms. I do the slipping, the bobbing, the weaving, and that shifting of my feet, but then I also use a Shakur Stevenson with my feet, which is a very defensive type of fighter. He moves around, he gets out of the way, he knows how to use his footwork very well. And then also, my favorite part of my boxing style is Canelo. I love Canelo Alvarez, who actually moves his head a lot. They say in boxing you need to hit and not get hit, so I’m very good at that, I can move my head a lot, I can see the punches coming, so sometimes they throw three punches, four punches, and I’ve dodged them all by moving my head, which is cool, and also landing my own and getting out of the way, Shakur Stevenson style.
They say in boxing you need to hit and not get hit, so I’m very good at that, I can move my head a lot, I can see the punches coming.
—James Canty III
Canty had no interest in going another round in the ring and set himself the task of playing as fast as possible in a completely won position. It worked, as when his opponent ran out of time, Canty still had over three and a half minutes to spare.
That meant Canty was through to the final, where, in the last match of the whole championship, he faced Russia’s Evgenii Isaev. This time, wearing and playing White, Canty got to play his trademark opening, the Jobava London.
The Meanest Jobava London is on sale! ⏩ https://t.co/vcDMKx7vZf pic.twitter.com/R8BJ7thN7v
— Chessable (@chessable) September 29, 2025
It was hyper-aggression from the start, with 6.h5!? posing questions.
Capturing on h5 would be met by an exchange sacrifice, but that was the way to challenge White, while 6…Bg4?! allowed Canty to drive away the bishop with gain of tempo. White was soon much better, but Isaev played well, stayed in the game, and was even better when Canty ended the round with a risky pawn break.
The issue again was the clock. Canty had used only 15 seconds, while Isaev burned up almost three minutes. There was a change for the final, however, with the players starting with six minutes each, so that no one could win on time without two rounds of boxing. Once again it was fierce in the ring, with Canty often finding himself on the ropes but ducking and weaving enough to avoid serious damage.
Then, in the second round of chess, Isaev played well, but he only had a small advantage on the board, while on the clock it was a gaping chasm—48 seconds vs. over five minutes for Canty. It was clear only a boxing knockout could save Isaev, but it didn’t come. Instead, with all real hope gone, he made his one significant blunder on the first move of what would be the last round.
Black resigned in a hopeless position, and with three seconds vs. five minutes and three seconds on the clock—all that bullet practice had paid off for Canty! GMs Fabiano Caruana and Cristian Chirila even called him the first American world champion (a running joke)…
The first American world champion 💪
👏 👏 @gmcanty pic.twitter.com/flkikbtT5I
— C-Squared Podcast (@CSQpod) September 29, 2025
Who would you like to see try to take Canty’s crown in the next edition?
