Canadian boxing legend George Chuvalo dead at 89

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Bill Beacon and Neil Davidson, September 12, 2026

George Chuvalo, a hard-nosed heavyweight who never hit the canvas despite taking on the world’s best boxers, has died. He was 89.

Chuvalo was a Canadian amateur champion at 17, held the national title as a pro for almost 20 years and was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world.

He was 73-18-2 as a pro with 64 knockouts in a pro career that stretched from 1956 to 1978.

His career was defined by two mega-bouts with Muhammad Ali, in 1966 at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens and 1972 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, in which Chuvalo drew kudos for standing toe-to-toe with the most gifted and charismatic boxer of the era.

“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 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, Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

Chuvalo took pride in noting he had more knockouts than Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey — and that they exceeded the total number of fights that Ali, Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Mike Tyson had.

“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 retired in 1978 having never been knocked down as pro.

“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.

“If you added up every punch I ever took and then multiplied the total by 10,000, it wouldn’t begin to equal the pain of losing three sons and a wife to drugs and suicide,” he wrote.

Ali made most opponents look slow and predictable, especially a stocky fighter who liked to get in close and work the body. But he could not finish Chuvalo, who had just 17 days notice to prepare for Ali the first time around after the champion’s fight with Ernie Terrell fell through.

“They had a contest between a bull and a bumblebee at Maple Leaf Gardens last night — with the usual result. The bull came out of it with his face looking like a bucket of balls at a golf driving range,” Toronto Star columnist Milt Dunnell wrote at the time.

But Ali, after going the full 15 rounds for the first time, went to hospital to be treated for internal bleeding. Chuvalo had other plans.

“I went dancing with my wife,” Chuvalo said. “I got the best of that deal.”

He did not do so well when it came to his payday. Chuvalo said he ended up with $12,500, with manager Irving Ungerman taking the lion’s share of the $49,000 purse after expenses.

Chuvalo lost a rematch to Ali six years later by 12-round decision.

Despite the defeats, the Ali fights made Chuvalo a star in Canada and in the boxing world as the tough, unrelenting underdog.

“Icon — that’s the only way I can describe George Chuvalo,” said Lennox Lewis, a Canadian boxing star of another generation.

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

Ali was 24 years old and had won all 21 of his fights, with 18 knockouts, when he first faced Chuvalo. Chuvalo was four years older, with a record of 30-11-2 that included 17 KOs.

Ranked 10th among heavyweight contenders at the time, Chuvalo came into the bout a 6-1 or 7-1 underdog.

There was menace in the ring from the start as the two fighters stood silently nose-to-nose while referee Jackie Silvers gave his pre-fight instructions.

Chuvalo stalked, Ali danced and jabbed — using his speed and three-inch reach advantage. When they clinched or Ali was cornered, Chuvalo looked to punish the body.