Canadian boxing legend George Chuvalo dies at 89

Chuvalo was a five-time Canadian heavyweight champion who fought Muhammad Ali in 1966 and 1972.

George Chuvalo, pictured here in 2018, was born on Sept. 12, 1937.

Canadian boxing icon George Chuvalo has died, the World Boxing Council confirmed Saturday on its website.

Chuvalo was 89 years old. He was born Sept. 12, 1937.

He was never crowned heavyweight champion of the world, but he was a five-time national heavyweight champion.

Chuvalo was the son of Croatian immigrants, and he grew up in Toronto.

He went toe-to-toe with Muhammad Ali in 1966 at Maple Leaf Gardens and again six years later at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.

George Chuvalo lands a punch to Muhammad Ali during their boxing match in Toronto in 1966.

“When people think of me, they think of me fighting Muhammad,” Chuvalo said. “It’s hard for them to think of anything else. But I had close to 100 fights. The perception of me is as a tough guy who could take a shot. I was supposed to have the best chin in boxing. It clouds my other abilities.”

Chuvalo also fought other greats of his era, including George Foreman and Joe Frazier.

Joe Frazier and George Chuvalo at a pre-fight press conference in 1967. Frazier would go on to win by TKO at Madison Square Garden. 

He was never once knocked down in 93 professional bouts. Chuvalo went 73-18-2 as a pro with 64 knockouts in a pro career that stretched from 1956 to 1978.

Chuvalo would point out that it took more than an ability to absorb punches to record 73 wins and be ranked in the top 10 in the world in an age of heavyweight greats like Ali, Frazier and Foreman.

“I’ll be remembered as a guy who fought the best of his time, beat a lot of them and lost to some others,” Chuvalo wrote in his 2013 autobiography, “Chuvalo: A Fighter’s Life: The Story of Boxing’s Last Gladiator.”

Chuvalo was chosen to represent Canada at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia but turned pro instead. “It didn’t make economic sense,” he said of remaining an amateur and going to the Games.

He fought nine times at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, going 3-6 against top pugilists like Frazier, Foreman, Floyd Patterson and Buster Mathis. His bloody 1965 encounter with Patterson was named fight of the year by The Ring, a prominent boxing magazine.

“The only guy I really missed was Sonny Liston, because when I signed to fight him (in December 1970) he’d been dead for a week,” Chuvalo told The Ring. “He passed away after I’d sent a telegram to the promoter, agreeing terms to the fight at the Montreal Forum.”

Chuvalo wrote in his memoir that was he was more fortunate in the ring than he was outside of it.

“I guess I was lucky, because I never had to deal with getting back on my feet,” he wrote. “Not in the ring, anyway. Outside the ropes has been a different story.”

Chuvalo lost three sons and his first wife Lynne to drugs and suicide.

A statue of Chuvalo was erected in his family’s ancestral home of Ljubuski in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011.

George Chuvalo throws a playful punch at former Toronto mayor Rob Ford after receiving the key to the city in 2013.

Chuvalo was inducted in Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1995 and the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1997. He was also named to the Order of Canada in 1998 and added to Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2005.

“He gave as good as he got, and then some,” reads Chuvalo’s bio at Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. “George Chuvalo was an extraordinary fighter and competitor — inside and outside of the boxing ring.”

Twenty-four years after his induction into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, Chuvalo took part in a new conference in Toronto at Mattamy Athletic Centre, site of the old Gardens, honouring the 2014 inductees — and the bell he answered 15 times against Ali some 48 years earlier.

Chuvalo, then 77, rang the bell at the new conference before giving a thumbs-up and then shadowboxing.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford called Chuvalo “a heavyweight boxing legend, a family friend and a Canadian icon” in a post on social media Saturday night.

George Chuvalo was a heavyweight boxing legend, a family friend and a Canadian icon. My thoughts are with all of George’s family and loved ones as we mourn his passing.

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Joshua Smith is a staff reporter with the Toronto Star. He can be reached at joshuasmith@thestar.ca.