Chess boxing, anyone?

Australian conditioning coach Justin Fortune’s wife Tamara Frapasella was in Kuala Lumpur to witness Manny Pacquiao’s win over Lucas Matthysse for the WBA welterweight title over a week ago. While Fortune was engaged in Pacquiao’s training camp in Manila and General Santos City for eight weeks, Tamara managed their 3,600-square foot Los Angeles gym aside from taking care of their 10-month-old twins Crayden and Sophia. Tamara was in Kuala Lumpur for a week and left the care of the twins to her parents and Fortune’s mother who flew in from Australia.

“I spend about 60 hours a week in the gym,” said Tamara, a former model who now produces movies and was recently involved in the recent “Transformers” sequel. “We’ve got about 690 members with at least 25 pros coming in to train from different countries like Armenia, Russia, Ukraine and of course, the Philippines. Justin trains Mercito Gesta with Freddie (Roach) and roughly 10 other pros, including George Kambosos and some MMA fighters.”

Tamara once battled Kim Kardashian in a two-round charity boxing event that was featured in season four of the TV series “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.” Kardashian lost a unanimous decision and walked away with a black eye. But Tamara said only a few minutes of the fight was shown on TV and Kardashian’s connections were the highlight.

Tamara said she’s now into chess boxing. She recently won a match via a second round checkmate and is the reigning Los Angeles chess boxing champion. “I think Manny would enjoy this sport because he’s good at boxing and chess,” she said.

Chess boxing was invented by Dutch performing artist Iepe Rubingh in 2003, the same year when Berlin hosted the sport’s first world championships. The sport is popular in Germany, the UK, India, Russia, China, Iran and Finland.

A chess boxing match is set for 11 three-minute rounds of alternating chess and boxing. It starts with three minutes of chess, then three minutes of boxing. Tamara said in chess, she removes a boxing glove from one hand to use it to move pieces. If at the end of 11 rounds, no fighter has lost by checkmate or disqualification or knockout or surrender, whoever is ahead on points in five rounds of boxing wins. If the five rounds of boxing result in a draw, the winner is the chess player with the black pieces. As far as Tamara is concerned, her goal is to win by checkmate or knockout, nothing else.  

Fortune, 52, said of all the world champions he’s handled, Pacquiao is by far the best and the classiest. He fondly calls him “a freak of nature” because of his incredible metabolism (which some people will kill for, he said), his ability to stay in competitive shape after over 20 years as a prizefighter and his talent in the ring. 

“I’ve taken care of about 30 world champions, including Manny, Brian Viloria, James Toney, Israel Vazquez and Johnny Bredahl,” said Fortune. “A champion I’ll never forget is Bredahl who’s Danish. He’s a smoker but three days before a fight, he would stop so I told him what for? Those three days off won’t make a difference anyway.” Bredahl, now 49, campaigned from 1988 to 2006 and compiled a 56-2 record, with 26 KOs. He was the former WBA/IBO/IBC bantamweight and WBO superflyweight champion. In 1996, Bredahl knocked out Filipino Rolando Pascua, a former WBC flyweight champion, in one round to retain his IBO bantamweight crown in Denmark.