George Chuvalo

Early life and career

George Louis Chuvalo was born on September 12, 1937, to Croatian immigrants Stipan and Katica, who came from Ljubuški in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. He won the Canadian amateur heavyweight championship in May 1955 by knocking out Peter Piper of Winnipeg in the first round of the final in Regina, Saskatchewan. His amateur record was a perfect 16-0, with every win coming by knockout within four rounds. Known early on as "Boom Boom," he turned professional in 1956 and knocked out four opponents in a single night to win a heavyweight tournament hosted by former champion Jack Dempsey at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on April 26, 1956. Over his career, he was ranked among the world's top heavyweights: ninth in 1963, fifth in 1964, third in 1965, eighth in 1966, fourth in 1968, and seventh in 1970.

Chuvalo is most remembered for his two bouts with Muhammad Ali. He lasted the full distance both times, losing by wide margins on the scorecards. Their first fight, on March 29, 1966, at Maple Leaf Gardens, was for Ali's world title. Afterward, Ali called Chuvalo the toughest man he ever faced.

Chuvalo also beat a long list of top-ten contenders, including Johnny Arthur, Julio Mederos, Howard King, Alex Miteff, James J. Parker, Yvon Durelle, Bob Cleroux, Willie Besmanoff, Mike DeJohn, Doug Jones, Bill Nielsen, Dante Cane, Joe Bygraves, Manuel Ramos, Jerry Quarry, and Cleveland Williams. He lost controversial decisions to Cleroux (twice), Floyd Patterson, Ernie Terrell, and Oscar Bonavena. His draws with Miteff and Tony Alongi were also disputed.

In his defeats, Chuvalo was stopped only twice: by Joe Frazier in 1967 and George Foreman in 1970, both times with the referee ending the fight while Chuvalo was still standing. He was disqualified in 1961 against Joe Erskine for headbutting. Remarkably, in all 93 professional fights, Chuvalo was never knocked down.

Tributes and other appearances

Chuvalo appeared in theatrical films, with acting roles in I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses (1978), Stone Cold Dead (1979), The Fly (1986), Last Man Standing (1987), Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1989), Lee's Offering (2005) and Sicilian Vampire (2015). On television, Chuvalo had an acting role in the 1991 film The Return of Eliot Ness as Tony Urso, and on the crime-fighting series Counterstrike as the Ring Announcer for the fight between Sugar Duke and Cal Sparks in the 1993 episode 'The Contender.'

His 1966 match against Ali was the subject of Joseph Blasioli's 2003 documentary film The Last Round: Chuvalo vs. Ali. On December 17, 2011, he travelled to Sarajevo to attend the unveiling of a statue in his honour in Ljubuški, his parents' birthplace, on December 18, 2011. On May 11, 2019, the George Chuvalo Neighborhood Centre in Toronto, Ontario, opened which provides a variety of recreational programs for children as well as LGBTQ youth.

Personal life

When Chuvalo was 21, he married 15 year old Lynne, with whom he had five children. Three of Chuvalo's sons, Jesse, Steven, and George Lee, were heroin addicts, which was introduced to the family by Jesse in 1984 after a severe motorbike accident led him to seek pain relief. The trio would often rob local pharmacies of prescription medication, for which they frequently served jail time. In February 1985, Jesse committed suicide, and over the next two months, Steven overdosed on heroin 15 times.

In November 1993, less than a week after being released from prison for robbery, George Lee died of a heroin overdose. Four days after George's death, Chuvalo's grief-stricken wife Lynne committed suicide on November 4. In August 1996, despite recent attempts at improving his life, including nearing completion on a degree in Russian Literature from Queen's University, Steven was found dead of a heroin overdose. Following his children's deaths, Chuvalo went into a deep depression.

By the time of Steven's death, Chuvalo had also found himself in financial distress; the mortgage on his home had been foreclosed, and the contents of his house were being removed by creditors, although his economic situation improved over the following decades, due primarily to his giving speeches about his family's travails. Chuvalo's son Mitchell is a high school teacher, while daughter Vanessa manages a food market. Three months after Lynne's death, Chuvalo married his second wife, Joanne O'Hara, 20 years his junior, in January 1994.

She already had two children from two previous relationships. In 2018, a judge ruled that Chuvalo did not have the mental capacity to determine if he wished to reconcile with his wife after living apart for multiple years, and by 2022, he was suffering from advanced dementia. In 1998, Chuvalo was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada and in 2005 received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. For his career success and anti-drug speaking campaigns, Chuvalo was awarded the key to the city of Toronto by mayor Rob Ford on March 26, 2013.