\u201cThe best thing I have going for myself is my attitude,\u201d he once said. \u201cI have a hard time quitting on something. I have a hard time walking away from something. I\u2019ll be the last guy to quit on somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chuvalo, who was awarded the Order of Canada for his boxing success as well as his anti-drug advocacy, died September 12, on his 89th birthday. His death was confirmed by the World Boxing Council, which praised his \u201cunrelenting courage and legendary iron chin\u201d.<\/p>\n
By the time he won his last professional match, in 1978, Chuvalo had compiled a career record of 73-18-2, with 64 of his wins coming by knockout. He was especially proud of knocking out Manuel Ramos, Mexico\u2019s heavyweight champion, in five rounds in 1968.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he was ranked No 4 in the world,\u201d Chuvalo later told the Canadian magazine Maclean\u2019s. \u201cI knocked out all the No 4s.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trouble came, he said, \u201cwith the ones, twos and threes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chuvalo had 17 days to prepare for his first match against the world\u2019s undisputed No 1 fighter, Ali, who had sparked backlash with his opposition to the Vietnam War and the draft. Ali\u2019s scheduled fight against Ernie Terrell, in Chicago, was scrapped, and the boxer travelled to Canada to face Chuvalo, who came into the bout as a 7-to-1 underdog.<\/p>\n
A New York Times headline summed up the consensus: Among gamblers, Chuvalo was considered \u201cA Big Bum With a Lot of Heart\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ali won in a unanimous decision. But Chuvalo was roundly praised for his resilience, having finished with a beat-up face that Toronto Star columnist Milt Dunnell compared to \u201ca bucket of balls at a golf driving range\u201d. His rematch with Ali, in Vancouver in 1972, also ended in defeat.<\/p>\n
By his own description, Chuvalo was a \u201crough and tough\u201d fighter, a 6ft brawler who trained himself to absorb punches, not just mete them out. His strengths were summed up neatly by Rocky Marciano, the former world champion, who reportedly quipped that \u201cif all fights were a hundred rounds, George Chuvalo would be unbeaten in any era\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his memoir, Chuvalo credited his tough chin in part to \u201cbeing born with a short neck\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said it also helped that he chewed bubble gum (\u201cto strengthen my jaw muscles\u201d) and had known \u201creal poverty\u201d, which he considered fuel for anyone wanting to become a pro boxer.<\/p>\n
Chuvalo went on to work in real estate and appear in movies, including an unlikely cameo in \u201cThe Fly,\u201d in which his character gets a bone broken in an arm-wrestling match with Jeff Goldblum.<\/p>\n
His personal life began to unravel in 1984, when his youngest son, Jesse, tore off his kneecap in a dirt-bike accident and tried heroin at a party, after someone suggested it might help ease the pain.<\/p>\n
Jesse began shooting up. Two of his brothers, George jnr (known as Georgie Lee) and Steven, were soon doing the same.<\/p>\n
Less than a year later, in 1985, Jesse died by suicide at age 20. His brothers\u2019 addictions deepened, and in 1987 they were sent to prison for robbing a drugstore.<\/p>\n
Shortly after he was released, Georgie Lee died of a heroin overdose in 1993. Chuvalo\u2019s wife, the former Lynne Sheppard, died by suicide two days after the funeral.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never stops,\u201d Chuvalo said. \u201cI must have been a bad guy in a previous life. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chuvalo found solace through his relationship with Joanne O\u2019Hara, a nurse and former colleague of his wife\u2019s, whom he credited with helping him carry on amid thoughts of suicide. They eloped in 1994. But his son Steven continued to struggle with a heroin addiction, and was sentenced to jail for another drugstore robbery.<\/p>\n
In 1996, he died of an overdose at 35, less than two weeks after he was released.<\/p>\n
Chuvalo partly blamed himself for what he called his \u201cpersonal holocaust\u201d.<\/p>\n
Often, when his sons were shooting up in the basement, he had been \u201cwalking around like I was deaf, dumb and blind,\u201d he said. But he also spoke out about a lack of social services and institutional support, including grief counselling that his son George jnr could have used in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have psychiatrists for sex offenders, but not for what he needed,\u201d Chuvalo told the Times. \u201cIt was like if I sparred with lightweights before I fought George Foreman. It just wasn\u2019t the proper preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chuvalo found an outlet for his grief through public speaking, connecting with young people who barely knew of his career as a boxer. But he also struggled to keep his sadness at bay, especially at night when he was alone with his thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the only time I feel sorry for myself,\u201d he told Maclean\u2019s in 1999. \u201cI think, \u2018How can you even live after that, how the hell did all that happen?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to be me after midnight.\u201d<\/p>\n
George Louis Chuvalo was born in Toronto on September 12, 1937, to Croatian immigrants from what is now Bosnia. His father skinned cattle on the floor of a slaughterhouse, and his mother worked at a poultry plant, plucking chickens for two and a half cents a bird.<\/p>\n
Chuvalo was about 9 when she got him his first set of boxing gloves. He had pleaded for gloves for two years, he said, ever since he spotted photos of muscle-clad fighters at a cigar store near their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe power of knocking a guy out, of standing over him, of raising your arms in the air, that was what appealed to me about boxing,\u201d he told Canada\u2019s National Post in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cA cave man can understand boxing. He might not understand cricket, but he can understand boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chuvalo\u2019s earliest fights took place at a parking lot known as Macaroni Field, which sat near a pasta factory.<\/p>\n
By 18, he had turned pro. He claimed Canada\u2019s heavyweight title in 1958 and was still bench-pressing 400 pounds nearly four decades later, frequenting the gym well into retirement.<\/p>\n
Late in life, with his cognitive health in decline, Chuvalo found himself at the centre of a bitter feud pitting his second wife against his surviving children, Mitchell and Vanessa, who said they were carrying out their father\u2019s wishes in pursuing a divorce case on his behalf.<\/p>\n
The Toronto Star reported in 2018 that as the case dragged on and his dementia progressed, friends and family pitched in to ensure he was looked after.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I talk to young people about drugs or staying off drugs, I always talk about love in your life,\u201d Chuvalo had told a reporter years earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd sometimes people say, \u2018Oh, yeah, love, you\u2019re not going to bore me with that stuff are you?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what else is there in life? What else are we here for if we can\u2019t love people?\u201d<\/p>\n
– The Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe best thing I have going for myself is my attitude,\u201d he once said. \u201cI have a hard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2586,169808,62031,106972,806,6326,92456,13312,145377,298392,9060,15124,33842,75866,93714,298394,12856,108694,22220,28726,172417,50218,14236,293,298393,118241,21409,11692,111,139,69,175177,14727,14233,29952,544,2022,213,223,2563,28557,37779,6736,102],"class_list":["post-605716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-1960s","tag-70s","tag-ali","tag-alis","tag-as","tag-biggest","tag-boxer","tag-canadian","tag-chins","tag-chuvalo","tag-decades","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-floyd","tag-foreman","tag-frazier","tag-george","tag-gladiator","tag-going","tag-hailed","tag-headtohead","tag-heavyweight","tag-held","tag-his","tag-interruptions","tag-muhammad","tag-names","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opponent","tag-outside","tag-patterson","tag-ring","tag-some","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-the","tag-title","tag-toughest","tag-unrelenting","tag-was","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}