Chuvalo

by George Chuvalo

  Having just been screwed out of a knockout because of the referee’s sympathy for Williams, I was in no mood for niceties. “You think so?” I snarled. “Ask him who just kicked his ass!” Williams had his head bowed down and didn’t say a word. I don’t know if it even registered. He just kept walking.

  The Big Cat had just three more fights after I beat him, and he retired in 1972 with a record of 78–13–1, with 58 KOs. On September 3, 1999, while crossing a street in Houston, he was hit by a car. He died from his injuries seven days later.

  I OPENED 1972 by defending my Canadian championship with a sixth-round KO of Charley Chase on January 28 in Vancouver. It was the headliner on a card at the Pacific Coliseum that also featured Clyde Gray defending his Canadian welterweight title with a four-round KO of Lonnie States, and as an added attraction Ali toyed with Tracey Summerfield and Jeff Merritt in a pair of five-round exhibitions. Three weeks later, on February 21, I knocked out Jimmy Christopher in two rounds at the Winnipeg Arena. I think that was the only time in my career that I didn’t get top billing on a Canadian card, but that date brings back a much darker memory: it was the night I saw Stu Gray, the older brother of Clyde Gray, get killed in the ring.

  Stu’s record was only 14–14–2, but that was good enough for him to get a title shot against Canadian light heavyweight champ Al Sparks. Sparks was a southpaw and not a big puncher himself, with only seven KOs on his 21–10 record. But Al was a dedicated, workmanlike fighter who always showed up in terrific shape. He turned pro the same year as me (1956) and won nine of his first 12 fights before getting knocked out by former world middleweight champ Bobo Olson in 1960. In 1969, Sparks dropped a 15-round decision to Bob Dunlop in Australia for the Commonwealth title, after decking Dunlop twice.

  After making short work of Christopher in the semi-main event, I had a ringside seat that terrible night in Winnipeg. Both guys came out punching, but Sparks was doing most of the landing. Gray was taking some good licks, and he looked foggy at the end of six rounds. When he sat down on the stool, his right leg was draped over the bottom rope. Teddy was working the corner, and he pulled Stu’s leg back inside.

  When the bell rang for round seven, Gray came out of the corner staring straight ahead. His gloves were up, but he didn’t look right. He just kept staring. Being a southpaw, Al circled to his right, out of Gray’s field of vision, but Stu didn’t even move his head. After a few seconds, Al moved back to his left and threw a long overhand left. Gray took the punch and turned, almost in slow motion, to his right. When he collapsed slowly to his knees, his backside was on the back of his heels. He grabbed the middle rope and his head was tilted at a 45-degree angle. I remember thinking that his pose looked like Jesus Christ on the cross. Then he went twisting around backwards. I’d never seen a guy knocked out that way. It was eerie.

  As soon as referee Steve Trojack counted Stu out, at 24 seconds, a doctor jumped into the ring. He wasn’t even the ring doctor, just a fan who was sitting behind where Gray went down. He immediately depressed Stu’s tongue, but it was obvious something was very wrong. I turned to my sparring partner Nafiz Ahmed and said in Croatian, “He’s going to die.”

  We all went to the hospital afterward. Stu underwent a two-hour operation to relieve intracranial pressure from a severe concussion, but he died of massive brain trauma a few hours later.

  Sparks was devastated. He had just three more fights before retiring in 1977 with a career mark of 23–12–1. I know Gray’s death must have haunted him, but I never heard him talk about it. It was a hell of a thing for him to live with all those years, but Al was one of the kindest, gentlest guys I ever met in the fight game. He was aces. When he died of a stroke in 2008, boxing lost one of its true gentlemen.

  ROUND 13

  GRAY’S DEATH WASN’T THE ONLY THING THAT put a dark cloud over the Winnipeg show. The following day, Christopher informed the Manitoba Boxing and Wrestling Commission that, prior to our fight, “a mysterious stranger in a long white overcoat” had threatened his life and ordered him to take a dive.

  It was all a product of Jimmy’s fertile imagination, of course, but the commission immediately issued Canada-wide suspensions for all the fighters and trainers, along with promoter Jack Keller, until an inquiry could be completed. Besides being ridiculous, I thought the investigation was callously inconsequential in the wake of Stewart’s death, but they went ahead with it anyway.

  A few days later, after extensive interviews with Christopher, referee William Cozman and other “persons of interest” (curiously, Teddy, Ungerman and I were not questioned), the commission issued a statement saying, “Christopher’s testimony exonerated Chuvalo and his mentors from all guilt, and indicated that they could not have in any way known about the alleged threat against his life.”

  In response, the Canadian Boxing Federation ordered the three-man Manitoba commission to rescind the suspensions, but chairman Norm Coston refused, telling the Winnipeg Free Press, “If we did that, we’d look like a bunch of donkeys.” Instead, all three guys resigned.

  The fight with Christopher was supposed to be a tune-up for a rematch with Ali on March 13 in Vancouver, but in the aftermath of Gray’s death and the commission investigation, on my behalf Ungerman requested a postponement until later in the spring. To be honest, Stewart’s death really shook me up, and I just didn’t feel like fighting for a while. The promoter, a Vancouver stockbroker named Murray Pezim, had already brought my pal Nick Zubray on board to help front the show, and while the postponement initially threw a monkey wrench into their plan to cash in on the boxing interest Ali helped ignite in the city after fighting those exhibitions in January, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

  The following week I flew to Yugoslavia with a business associate. Following up on some good connections I’d made during my visit in 1970, we were negotiating a deal to purchase aluminum, which we planned to resell back home. A few days after we arrived, however, Irving called to say the bout with Ali was set for May 1, so I had to cut out early in order to resume training.

  Unfortunately, my associate, who didn’t speak Croatian and had no clue about how to grease the appropriate wheels in the Communist bureaucracy, ended up getting bogged down in red tape. The end result was that a deal that could have netted us hundreds of thousands of dollars never got off the ground, and he returned to Toronto empty-handed.

  I grabbed a flight from Zagreb to London, where arrangements had been made for me to spar with Billy Aird, an up-and-comer from Liverpool whose claim to fame to that point in his career was that he’d won two of three fights with compatriot Richard Dunn. Four years later, in Munich, Dunn would challenge for the world championship and go down in history as the last fighter to be KO’d by Muhammad Ali.

  I handled Aird rather easily. He wasn’t big or particularly quick, but what he lacked in speed and stature, he made up for in enthusiasm. Still, after pretty much toying with him for a few days, I knew it was time to get back to Toronto to put in some serious rounds with my regular sparring partners. As it turned out, that plan would have to be put on hold.

  I started feeling a little queasy just before leaving London, and by the time the transatlantic flight touched down in Toronto, I was sicker than I’d ever been in my life. And it lasted for a full week. I remember dragging myself home and telling Lynne how horrible I felt, then collapsing into bed and feeling so weak that I couldn’t even get up to use the bathroom. I actually crapped the bed! Lynne somehow managed to get me up long enough to change the sheets, but when I crawled back into the sack I didn’t even care if I died. Looking back, it’s hard to believe. I never thought I’d say something like that in a million years, but my will to live was almost nonexistent. I was so tired and weak that I couldn’t begin to muster the energy to make myself fight back. I just didn’t care.

  The illness finally ran its course, but it wasn’t until decades later, when I had a blood test prior to getting inoculated for a trip to Africa in 2008, that I found out why
I’d gotten so sick: acute hepatitis A. I must have eaten some bad food over in Europe, and when the virus took hold of my liver, it was like a death grip.

  But there was no time to contemplate the whys or what-ifs. The hype was already building for my rematch with Ali—dubbed “The Second Reckoning” by Pezim and Zubray—and I had about seven weeks to prepare for what I realistically knew was my last opportunity to earn another shot at the title Joe Frazier had claimed when he beat Muhammad the previous March.

  ROUND 14

  MY FIRST CLUE THAT “THE SECOND RECKONING” was going to be a somewhat unorthodox promotion came at a press conference following the formal signing ceremony in New York, where Pezim actually managed to outtalk both Ali and Howard Cosell. Believe me, that took some doing!

  I liked Pezim right from the start; he reminded me of a smaller, more hyper version of Zube. An excitable little guy, Murray went on and on about how the fight would transform Vancouver into “the boxing capital of the world” (quite a bold statement, considering we were in a hotel adjacent to Grand Central Station, just blocks from Madison Square Garden), and how he had already received confirmations (or so he boasted) from all the biggest stars in Hollywood and New York to attend what he promised would be a “90-hour A-list all-star party” at the Bayshore Inn, the swanky seaside resort that eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes had moved into a couple of years earlier.

  Grandiose plans were part and parcel of Pezim’s personality. Born in Toronto in 1920, he didn’t make his first investment until he was in his 30s. After serving in World War II, he was working in his father’s butcher shop when he sank his life savings—$13,000—into stock of a company that prospected for gold and copper mines. By the time the company went broke six weeks later, Murray was hooked on the markets. He took an unpaid apprenticeship at a Toronto brokerage firm and eventually learned enough to move to New York and earn a living in the financial district. He later returned to Toronto and struck it rich after buying up stock in northern Ontario’s Denison Mines for 40 cents a share. When Denison went on to develop the vast uranium deposits at Elliot Lake, the stock peaked at $85.

  After that, there was no stopping “The Pez.” In 1963 he relocated to Vancouver where, in addition to making and losing several fortunes, he became one of the city’s most beloved and recognizable raconteurs while cultivating a lifelong love of sports—and the spotlight. Years later (1989), he bought the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League, then made more headlines by signing former New York Giants defensive end Marc Gastineau. In addition to suiting up for the Lions, Gastineau—along with his girlfriend, actress Brigitte Nielsen—was made a minority owner of the team. After one season, however, Gastineau was gone. “Marc had two problems,” Pezim told Sports Illustrated writer Douglas Looney. “He didn’t try, and he’s not too bright.” When Gastineau later launched a brief pro boxing career, whom do you think he asked to be his manager? Murray Pezim!

  Like Ali, Pezim never met a microphone he didn’t like, and at the New York press conference I got quite a kick out of watching him interact with the media guys. It didn’t matter if the question was about me, Ali or the state of boxing in Vancouver; at some point Murray always wound up telling the reporter that he had discovered more gold than anyone in history—“more than 40 million ounces … you can look it up!”

  When it was Ali’s turn to take the microphone, he opened by saying I hit him low “26 times … or 30 … or 60 times” in our first fight, six years earlier.

  “Wait a minute,” I interjected. “How many times?”

  “I guess about 30 times,” replied Muhammad.

  “Hell, that’s only twice per round,” I shot back. “Don’t tell me you can’t take that!”

  When a bunch of the newspaper guys started snickering, Ali took it as a cue to jump up and start swinging his arms the way your sister might throw a bowling ball.

  “The first time you hit me low, I’m gonna hit you low right back,” he barked, glaring at me. “There will be no low blows, or there will be a lot of them. It’s your choice, George.” Warming up to his shtick, he turned to the crowd and added, “Chuvalo is a dirty fighter, and this time I’m gonna knock him down. I want him out on his back, out unconscious—in the first round, if I can get him. I’m not gonna let it be said there was ever a heavyweight that didn’t fall. They have pictures showing my heels. Jack Johnson fell. Jack Dempsey fell. Joe Louis and Joe Frazier, they fell. And on May 1, George Chuvalo is gonna fall! I know you’ve never been knocked down, George, but you’ve been on one knee, haven’t you?”

  “Only in church,” I said, playing the straight man.

  “Well, you better do some more prayin,’ ‘cuz this time you’ve got to go! I won’t name the round, but it rhymes with four. They are selling ads for the closed circuit on this fight, and I’m going to tell them to put the ads on the soles of your shoes so the people will see that Chuvalo at 34, the veteran of 85 fights, knows when he’s whipped.”

  Then Ali’s tone turned quietly serious. “You know, last night I had a bad dream,” he told the throng. “There was a news flash: ‘Muhammad Ali dies of a heart attack at age 30.’ I woke up sweating. I’m sure glad it was a dream. So do me a favor, press people: don’t get me too excited! I don’t want that dream to come true up in Vancouver.”

  After the conference wrapped up, Howard Cosell asked me if I’d join him for a drink at a bar on the other side of Grand Central Station. We’d worked together a few times when ABC hired me to provide color commentary for boxing coverage on Wide World of Sports, and I always enjoyed talking to him. Howard liked to say of himself, “Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.”

  As we walked briskly through the crowd (well, I sort of half-jogged while Cosell, who stood about 6 foot 5, kind of loped along at double time), wide-eyed fans kept shouting greetings at him. One guy breathlessly ran up beside us and gushed, “Oh, Mr. Cosell, you’re absolutely brilliant on Monday Night Football!” Without breaking stride, Howard gave him a dismissive glance and tersely huffed, “Well, naturally!”

  When we finally sat down for our drink (I had orange juice, he had a beer), Cosell said he thought Muhammad’s serious tone hadn’t been a put-on. “Ali doesn’t joke about dreams, and he never talks about death,” he said. “Maybe you’re already inside his head, George.”

  Either way, I had my work cut out.

  In the five months since I defeated Cleveland Williams on the undercard of Ali’s win over Buster Mathis in Houston, I’d only banked eight rounds of real fighting: the quick KOs of Charley Chase and Jimmy Christopher. Muhammad, on the other hand, had gone seven rounds in knocking out Jurgen Blin in Switzerland in December and then followed up with a 15-round decision over Mac Foster on April 1 in Tokyo.

  Anxious to get a rematch with Frazier (it wouldn’t come until 1974, after Joe lost the title to George Foreman), Ali wanted to keep busy. Our fight would be for the North American Boxing Federation title he claimed in his second comeback fight by knocking out Oscar Bonavena in 1970, and he’d already announced his intention to take on Jerry Quarry, Al “Blue” Lewis and Floyd Patterson in rapid succession, regardless of what happened in Vancouver.

  Unlike for our first fight, when I had only 17 days to get ready in an atmosphere that bordered on complete chaos, this time my camp was calm and workmanlike. Ungerman brought in Bill Drover to join my regular roster of sparring partners, and he proved to be a useful addition. Drover hailed from Wabush, Newfoundland, and in the previous year he’d beaten Jean-Claude Roy, fought to a 10-round draw with Joe Bugner and dropped a decision to Jack Bodell. Lanky and quick on his feet, he did a good job of emulating the way Ali carried both hands low before flicking out his jab.

  A few days before the fight, Muhammad showed up at the gym just as I was getting dressed after a sparring session. Accompanied by a TV camera crew and a small army of reporters, he started shouting about how he was going to knock me out, an
d then he threw a half-assed punch across the closed half-door that separated us. I knew he wasn’t serious, but for the benefit of the cameras I braced myself by putting my hand on top of the partition, then lunged at him. When I made my move, the thing collapsed—and I immediately felt a sharp pain in my side. I didn’t let on that anything was wrong, and we continued jawing at each other for another minute or two (the reporters ate it up) before going our separate ways.

  When Teddy checked me out afterward, he discovered I’d separated a couple of ribs and likely torn some cartilage. Despite the injury, we never considered not going through with the fight. If it had been Joe Frazier or George Foreman, I would have asked for a postponement, but we knew Ali had never been a body puncher, so it was really no big deal. A little ice and I was good to go. Besides, I was making $65,000—the biggest payday of my career. That was a far cry from our first bout when, after expenses—and Irving scalping me under the contract—I pocketed something like $700 a round. When I think about that today, I have to laugh—otherwise I’d cry!

  Ali’s pre-fight antics didn’t surprise me; in fact, I started to think maybe Howard Cosell was right when he’d suggested I might be messing with Muhammad’s head. At the Hotel Georgia, when Ali got in the elevator to ride down to the weigh-in press conference, the only other occupant was Teddy McWhorter. Dead serious, Muhammad asked my trainer, “Your man ain’t gonna hit me in the body again, is he?”

  At the weigh-in, Ali was 217 pounds—his best weight and shape since his loss to Frazier 14 months earlier. I scaled 221. There was no jive at the weigh-in, and when the reporters asked Muhammad why he appeared so serious, he replied, “There’s $5 million at stake for me in a rematch with Frazier. You watch Wells Fargo guards when they unload a payroll … they look serious, too.”