Chuvalo: A Fighter’s Life: The Story of Boxing’s Last Gladiator

Chuvalo:A Fighter's Life:The Story of Boxing's Last Gladiator by George Chuvalo with Murray Greig, 2013 is an entertaining read.

Boxing, “the sweet science” has always had a select fan base and its popularity has been waning maybe partly because it is too violent, and in some camps recently, because it isn't violent enough.

This book is a window on a life few people know, and many don't care to know, through the eyes of one of the most violent and durable practitioners of the sport.

These latter two characteristics made George Chuvalo, the Toronto born heavyweight of the Muhammed Ali era, one of the most widely avoided opponents. For the other contenders and champions of the time there was little to be gained in rankings in a battle with Chuvalo and a brutal beating to be received, win or lose. Following two heavyweight championship losses (Ernie Terrell and Muhammed Ali) the loser, Chuvalo, went out on the town while the 'victors' went to hospital with suspected organ or rib damage.

Chuvalo muses that in a fight-to-the-end competition the others' rankings might have been based on how long they lasted with him. He points out that in his career, he “rarely won” decisions. While others were scoring points for the artful jabs they landed and combinations they put together, he was pummelling their body to wear them down.

Commentators and experts might speculate how long Chuvalo could last with such and such opponent, where Chuvalo was thinking how long they could last with him and his career proved his perspective more valid.

For those who knew the city of Toronto in the 1940s and 50s, it would be little surprise that such a fighter grew up in an immigrant family in the multi-ethnic poverty of the “Junction District” (trains) in the west end of the city. During that period it was known for “gang rumbles” involving such implements as zip guns, baseball bats and bicycle chains.

Chuvalo showed early scholastic promise, skipping grade four in elementary school. Despite a career of 93 fights, and a lot of apparent hits to the head, he, at 77, remains a relative lucid and articulate luminary among his living contemporaries, (most are dead) others have 'dementia pugilista' from the fight game.

So whether one likes the sport or its participants, Chuvalo, who was never knocked out or even down, is in a class by himself. At the hands of Joe Frazier and George Foreman he suffered technical knockouts. Frazier severely aggravated an existing eye injury leading the referee to stop the fight. The Foreman fight was stopped because the referee thought Chuvalo was absorbing too much punishment. Chuvalo maintains he was letting Foreman punch himself out. Ali was successful against Foreman with a more sophisticated version of this.

“But I was a much better defensive fighter than I ever got credit for. I didn't get hit with half the punches people think I did. If that were true, I'd be walking around on my heels today. Nobody's that tough.”

Chuvalo was not liked by his opponents, or at least his inside fighting style, characterized by more than an average number of low blows and head butts, wasn't. Maybe by contrast, he liked and admired many of his opponents, among them Ali and Joe Frazier, the latter he described as a “sweet guy”.

Like the other boxers of his era, he benefitted from the entertainment value and character of Ali. It was likely the peak of the sport's respectability as Ali became a transcendent international personality.

Some of Ali's rivals were insulted by the nicknames Ali bestowed on them and the articulate verbal abuse (poetry), comparable to his fighting style, he dished out in promoting the sport and fights.

Chuvalo was not in that resentful group and cherished his nickname of “washerwoman” “as one of Ali's more original”. On first hearing it, he was puzzled until he later saw a film of him repeatedly pummelling Mike Dejohn up against the ropes and thought “washerwoman” an appropriate characterization of his style. The actual Ali quote was “I don't like the way Chuvalo fights. He can cut you. He butts and does everything else dirty. He's rough and tough and fights like an old washerwoman.”

Chuvalo specifically remembers the only time he ever felt his knees begin to buckle following a punch. And it wasn't from the biggest names of the era Ali, Frazier or Foreman but DeJohn a 6'5” inch 215-pounder from a slightly earlier era.

Rather than being a victim, like many of the other nicknamed, Chuvalo turned the joke back on Ali getting into the spirit by crashing more than one of the champ's press conferences, washtub in tow in floral dress, bonnet and granny glasses drag as the “washerwoman”, calling out to “Cautious Cassius”.

Much of the book is a rendition of his fights as he remembers and interprets them, not with excess modesty. For many, the casual way he describes beatings and knockouts will seem callous. But if you have any interest in boxing you get the inside story of the life and characters of his time.

To me it revealed how busy, with lesser contests, professional boxers are outside of the limelight few “big” fights in their careers.

Whether conscious or not, references and stories indicate Chuvalo had a racial tolerance ahead of his time, at least in the United States.

The last chapter of the book is devoted to the drug-ravaged Chuvalo family tragedy that saw his wife and three of his son's commit suicide and his subsequent personal war on drug use and drug addiction that motivates him to speak at schools. With his boxing career three decades in the past, for many, he is best known for this sad chapter in his life.

But boxing was his essence “I was 41 years old and doing the only thing I ever wanted to do, the one thing I was born to do. I didn't care who was standing in front of me; I just wanted to whack him hard enough to make him see those black lights.” Even then he still “loved the sport, its culture and atmosphere”.

“I'm prouder of the fact that, on the way to compiling a record of 73-18-2 I had more knockouts than both Jack Dempsey (47) and Joe Louis (51), and my 64 KOs are more than Rocky Marciano, Ali, Frazier or Tyson had total fights.”

Chuvalo's fame was not based on his punching, but his ability to take a punch. He attributes that to a short neck, training to absorb punishment and chewing a lot of bubble gum to strengthen his jaw muscles. He used an assortment of imaginative and varied training techniques such as wood splitting, hammering tires with a sledge and doing “wobbles and rotations” in a headstand for half an hour.

One comment that seems to be born out with many boxers. “With education and the right breaks, anyone can aspire to become a doctor or a lawyer...but you have to know real poverty to want to earn your living as a fighter.” And poverty dogged him for much of his career. The opportunity to make money motivated him to turn pro when the '56' Olympics were beckoning.

Chuvalo didn't completely craft this book himself, but one can imagine him talking this way. From a technical point one omission is a bit annoying. While the book is broken down into chapters or parts, there isn't a “chapter page” denoting them or the pages they start on. I found the narrative lively and compelling and had no problem staying engaged.

The first part of the book is devoted to his childhood years and the “immigrant struggle” of his Bosnia-Herzgovina parents. Both parents worked in meat packing and cutting. War (second world war) animosity probably inflamed the ethnic neighbourhood as well.

In his prime, Chuvalo often weighed in around 215 pounds at slightly over six feet tall. His father was about 5'9” and 200 pounds, but his mother was 5'11' and 215. He recalls his father as an autocratic disciplinarian dealing out physical punishment, but interprets him as a “having a good heart”, not an abuser.

Church held a higher profile then. “My dad took us to church every week, and I was an altar boy for a couple of years. My mother never went to church because she thought it was too exclusive. Her philosophy was simply to be a good person all the time, not just on Sunday. To her, being Catholic meant you didn't lie, cheat or steal, and you didn't have to go to church to learn those things. The old man saw things differently. To him, church was where you went to repent for all the bad things you'd done in the previous six days...even though he had his own ideas about penance.”

Chuvalo recalls his first “real introduction” to boxing came from reading the words of Canadian fitness guru Lloyd Percival on the back of boxing trading cards.

He started lifting weights when he was 14, in response to a slur about his biceps. At 15 he had put on 75 pounds and was 198. Weightlifting is a “passion” still with him today. He bumped his pushup total from four to 400 in nine months. He was precociously strong and he believed he was as strong in the pushing and struggling part of boxing as anybody he ever fought. Despite that, early in his career he was more of a boxer from long range.

At one point, despondent for a few months, he lifted weights and bulked up to 255.

Despite losing interest in school, he held on through grade 11 playing football and sprinting at St. Michael's, a school that included hockey players Dick Duff, Charlie Burns and football player Tony Roman.

Through his career he never thought he had good management, but he kept the trainer, Teddy McWhorter, he acquired early in Detroit, for his whole career. The trainer should know the subtleties of angles and details that could make the difference between winning and losing. His trainer saw Chuvalo's strength as his biggest advantage so getting the opponents on the ropes for body punches was his style. Standing on their feet to prevent escape might be part of it. But even that required a technique and was also taught and coached by his trainer. “When I am in close, I feel I'm the boss and I can impose my will on anybody.”

As a 19-year-old professional fighter he began dating a grade 9 student he later learned was “underage”. She got pregnant at 15 and they were married soon after. The first son, Mitchell, was a good student and later became a high school teacher.

Chuvalo admits to not adjusting to married life and making mistakes. Among them was a checkered career with the law, although not serious offences. His notoriety meant a big press splash when he was charged, but a small story when he was exonerated.

Chuvalo's first poignant recollection of racism in the U.S. occurred when he and his trainer waited more than half an hour for a menu in a Louisville restaurant. When he complained, he was told they wouldn't serve his trainer. He said he could “see the hurt in McWhorter's eyes”. They went to a swankier place in the city “where they didn't have any qualms about serving the only white guy in the joint”.

He mentions another incident in what was basically a black club. He accepted a woman's invitation to dance. Then the club manager came and told him inter-racial dancing was prohibited. The manager subsequently changed his mind on this policy when a patron from the boxing fraternity promptly stuck a gun in his face.

Through the book Chuvalo relates some anecdotes about his wife Lynne. One involved her laying on the floor and working the broken gas pedal with a stick at George's instruction over a drive from Windsor to Toronto. Another was when she (then 20) gave birth in the car as George was speeding through city streets, cruiser in pursuit, at 3 a.m. He bragged quite a bit about her after that.

And something that seems out of character for a heavyweight boxer. “When I wasn't sparring or otherwise conditioning my body, I relaxed and sharpened my mind by reading 'The Prophet', a collection of 26 poetic essays by Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran.” He calls it one of his all-time favourite books.

As well as often detailing his fights, he offers insightful views and opinions on other fighters. Mike Dejohn was a “real gentleman”. Rocky Marciano was humorous, and fun to be around, but a cheapskate. Rocky along with Joe Louis were often solicited to be at his training camps, although he liked them personally he thought them a distraction. He called Floyd Patterson a “gracious victor”, after their fight.

Chuvalo describes Sonny Liston as one of the top five or six heavyweight champions ever, and regrets he never got to fight him. Liston was also called “a dirty rough-houser” as well.

Not a supporter of the Vietnam war himself , Chuvalo was surprised that Ali's stance “stirred up such a hornet's nest”.

Of Ali, he said “I liked him” and talked about the fun they had kibitzing with the “washerwoman” stuff. He described Ali's poetry and boasting style as taken from the wrestler Gorgeous George, but elevated to another level. “It was refreshing. Boxing had never had a showman like him, and I thought it was great.”

Contrary to general opinion, Chuvalo rated Joe Frazier's the best defense of any fighter he fought. He said that he and Frazier had grown pretty close over the years. When asked to characterize the punches of Frazier and Foreman, he said Frazier's was like getting hit by a Pontiac going 100 mph and Foreman's a Mack truck going 50 mph. “Either way it's not pretty.”

After the Frazier fight, Chuvalo abandoned his Catholic habit of crossing himself before fights reflecting how “absurd it was to ask God to help me beat up the guy in the opposite corner”.

Chuvalo had an indirect connection with the first “Rocky” movie. Sylvester Stallone hauls a 'Chuvalo' fight photo out of his wallet to show his girlfriend (claiming it was him) and as such making it a piece of trivia. Chuck Wepner, a journeyman heavyweight, was the model. Chuvalo saw several parallels with himself in the movie such as training in a slaughterhouse, short notice chance to fight for the championship. But he thinks his regular top ten ranking was out of character.

Chuvalo's mother started him in boxing, buying him gloves from Eaton's, but she never watched a fight. Even when she attended, she couldn't bear to watch.

Chuvalo felt he could wear down Foreman in their fight and believed he was doing it when the referee stopped the fight. Ali was successful leaning on the ropes absorbing progressively wilder punches.

Foreman, said Chuvalo, underwent a transformation in both personality and fighting as he got older. “When he was young, he wasn't that likeable, he was surly, almost arrogant. But when he came back, he was like a different person; always affable and smiling. People identified with him. He went from being a menacing, brooding Sonny Liston wannabe to a self effacing, roly-poly jokester.”

He calls Foreman's retaking the heavyweight championship at nearly 46 “for my money the greatest comeback in all of sports history.”

He talks about the speed and fitness of Ali prior to his exile from boxing and how he relied so much on guile when he returned. Chuvalo put intelligence and strategy at the top for Ali's win over Foreman in Zaire and “heart” for the win over Frazier in Manila.

Patterson and Chuvalo were the only two heavyweights to fight him on both sides of the exile. Of the second fight Ali said “You know I don't like to brag, but anybody who can take my best shots and still be on his feet at the end has to be great, and Chuvalo was that tonight.”

Of Ali today wracked by Parkinson's disease, “Muhammad retains a certain grace about him no matter what happens. I see him as a happy person surrounded by love.” Chuvalo also sees himself as happy and surrounded by love.

Bobby Orr, in his book, spoke with reverence about his last meeting with an Ali, who probably didn't recognize him, but greeted him and didn't let on.

When asked about fighting prowess in hockey Chuvalo picked the Montreal Canadians John Ferguson, ahead of Gordie Howe, because “Ferguson made more title defenses”.

Canadians general manager Sam Pollack nixed an exhibition fight with Chuvalo and Ferguson. Only devout blinded hockey fans could imagine that being anything like a fair fight. One noted NHL enforcer, Tiger Williams, was given a profound one-round lesson from a pedestrian boxer.

The book also has a Bobby Orr reference where Chuvalo wonders if the hockey star knew his money was being used through Alan Eagleson in some boxing promotions. Orr's books suggests that he probably didn't know this, along with a lot of other Eagleson ventures. So was Orr in the boxing business?

Chuvalo has had brief sojourns into commentary work. One of the big ones was “colour” for the Ali/Terrell fight in 1967.

In an appendix at the back, Chuvalo describes the “best I faced” in various categories of fighting. He picked Ali “the best boxer”, “the best fighter” and “the best chin”. He said George Foreman was the strongest. Foreman tied with Mike DeJohn as who 'hit the hardest'. Joe Frazier had the best defense.

Chuvalo, who absorbed a lot of head blows, says the most vulnerable for a knockout is along the jaw line and behind the ear. He took many of his head blows high on the head from the front.

In his next to last chapter, Chuvalo deals with the family tragedy where three sons and his wife, Lynne, committed suicide. The three boys were drug addicts and Lynne, by this time an alcoholic, was overcome by the deaths of her sons.

During this period the couple was separated which, Chuvalo said, contributed to a lack of awareness of the nature or extent of the problems with his sons.

“I was so ignorant and stupid about not understanding how god-awful and all-powerful that drug (heroin) is that I thought he could beat it without any real intervention on my part.”

His sons had been in jail for robbing drugstores to get pills. He speaks of the craving where his son walked/ran 17 miles in -20 temperatures to get pills. One son had said that he and two of his bothers had a sense of worthlessness.

This whole experience led Chuvalo to channel his sense of loss into being a spokesperson for 'Fight Against Drugs Foundation'. Over nearly 20 years he has made more than 1,500 presentations to schools, juvenile detention centres and other facilities across Canada and parts of the U.S. and Europe.

He describes himself as damaged goods, along with his surviving children Mitchell and Vanessa, in the wake of the suicides. He speaks of the need for reciprocal love and regularly professing it to maintain connections in a family.

In the wake of his boxing career, he has acted in bit parts, in TV series and some movies, often as a heavy. He has done some commercials. And occasionally people ask for autographs related to his parts.

“To be honest, if you'd told me in 1978 that I would still be signing autographs on a daily basis 35 years later, I'd have said you were nuts...but I'm happy to report that it never gets old. Its humbling to be remembered by folks who want a little keepsake, and I would never think of not signing, no matter what.”

If he hadn't been a fighter Chuvalo would like to have been a criminal defense lawyer fighting for other people. Willie de Wit, a 1984 Olympic silver medalist and later Canadian heavyweight champion, is the only one he knows who went from high level boxing to law.

Among other honours Chuvalo is a Member of the Order of Canada.