Chess right of a deposed champion to a rematch, and the next champion, Armenian Tigran Petrosian, a player renowned for his defensive and positional skills, held the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky from Russia (champion 1969–1972), won games in both positional and sharp tactical style. The next championship, the so-called Match of the Century, saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II, American Bobby Fischer, who defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and clearly won the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when FIDE did
Bobby Fischer is the future world champion! Fischer demanded to play against Mikhail Botvinnik, the reigning World Champion. When told that this was impossible, Fischer asked to play Keres. "Finally, Tigran Petrosian was, on a semi-official basis, summoned to the club..." where he played speed games with Fischer, winning the majority. "When Bobby discovered that he wasn't going to play any formal games... he went into a not-so-silent rage", saying he was fed up "with these Russian pigs", which angered the Soviets who saw Fischer as their honored guest. It was then that the Yugoslavian chess officials offered to take in Fischer