Chuvalo

by George Chuvalo

  The weigh-in is also where I was introduced to PR coordinator and ring announcer Shelly Saltzman for the first time. A former sportscaster for the U.S. Armed Forces Network who’d also dabbled in promoting, he was kind of a flamboyant guy who struck me as trying a bit too hard to be noticed. A couple of years later, Saltzman was one of the principals in a company called Invest West Sports, which cut a deal with Top Rank’s Bob Arum to put up the money for stuntman Evel Knievel’s rocket-cycle jump across the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. As part of the deal, Saltzman made himself media coordinator for the event.

  During the months of promotion for Evel’s jump, Saltzman carried a cassette tape recorder with him in order to get stuff for an upcoming book. Knievel, Arum and others involved in the promotion were interviewed daily on the recordings, and Saltzman later claimed they were fully aware of his intention to write about his experience.

  In late 1977, when Dell Publishing released Saltzman’s book—Evel Knievel on Tour—it included information that Knievel claimed damaged his image and was misleading to the public. Evel was outraged. A few weeks after the book’s release, Knievel visited the lot of Twentieth Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles, where Saltzman was an executive, and attacked him with a baseball bat, fracturing his arm. Evel received a sentence of six months on work furlough for the assault, and in a subsequent civil lawsuit Saltzman was awarded $12.75 million in damages. Knievel declared bankruptcy and none of the civil award was paid.

  A few months before Evel died in 2007, Saltzman released a second book entitled Fear No Evel: An Insider’s Look at Hollywood, in which he told his side of the assault, as well as his involvement in American sports and media.

  On fight night, Shelly Saltzman’s over-the-top preamble—“Introducing the gladiatorrrrs!”—was about what you’d expect from a guy who enjoyed being in the spotlight so much. He introduced Ali first—for some reason stating Muhammad was from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, instead of Louisville, Kentucky—and then, turning to me, he boomed, “And his worthy opponent … his worthy opponent … the great Toronto hard-rock … Canadian heavyweight champion … George Chuvalo … Chuvalo!”

  I’ve got to admit it: the guy had style.

  When the bell rang, my strategy was what it had always been: crowd and punch, crowd and punch, and keep crowding and punching until something gives. Neither of us expected any surprises, but right away I realized the 1972 version of Ali was a mere shadow of what he’d been six years earlier.

  In our first fight, I tried to slow Muhammad down by throwing maybe 75 to 80 per cent of my punches to his body, and that’s what I planned to do this time, too. But after the first round I could see he wasn’t nearly as fast as he’d been back then, so I kind of switched things around and started shooting my jab. Nobody ever talks about it, but when you look at the film, you’ll see that I landed a lot of jabs. In fact, my jab was working so well that I kind of forgot to go to his body as often as I should have—at least through the first six rounds.

  The biggest difference I noticed (and remember, Floyd Patterson and I were the only guys to fight Ali both before and after his forced exile) was that Muhammad just didn’t have the same energy or fluidity. In ‘66, he threw a lot more punches and had more verve, in a sense. The second time around he tried to get by on guile, because he didn’t have the same physical attributes. There were flashes of his old style, for sure, but he couldn’t sustain it. He was just a much better conditioned athlete the first time we fought.

  I tagged Ali with a hard right cross off two left hooks late in Round 5, and he fell back on the ropes and waved me in to slug it out. That had always been one of Muhammad’s reactions when he was hurt, but I figured he was just playing possum, so I waited for him to bounce back on his toes. That was a huge mistake—which Angelo Dundee later confirmed when he told me that Ali was genuinely hurt at that point and was ready to go.

  In the sixth, Muhammad opened up with his combinations for really the only time in the fight, including a couple of backhands that referee Dave Brown chose to ignore. At some point a cut opened above my right eyebrow, but it wasn’t a factor. The last half of the fight played out like a cat-and-mouse chase, with Ali relying mostly on his jab while I went back to my original plan to try to pin him on the ropes so I could bang to his body.

  When the scoring was announced—judges Tom Paonessa and Tom Keyes had it 60–46 and 58–51 respectively, while Brown saw it 59–51—I was disappointed but not surprised. I thought it should have been much closer; in fact, some of the writers had me winning, but writers don’t count. And when you’re battling a legend, you never get any breaks.

  At the post-fight press conference, when somebody asked me if I was going to retire, Muhammad interrupted before I had a chance to answer: “Going on what he did tonight, George doesn’t have to think about quitting,” he said. “In fact, he ought to be ranked higher than he is … maybe even third.”

  That wasn’t all Ali had to say. “George hurt me three times,” he told a reporter from the Vancouver Sun. “If I hadn’t been in such good shape, he might have beat me. He took all my best shots. 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.”

  Remember what I said about fighting a legend? An hour later, after I had showered and was getting ready to leave, my buddy Chuck Scriver dropped by my dressing room to report that he’d just seen referee Dave Brown exiting Ali’s room with a souvenir of the fight. Author Tom Henry described the scene in Inside Fighter, his 2001 biography of Brown: “Dave was thinking he might get a shoelace, but Ali had something else in mind. He scooped his blood-spattered satin boxing shorts from the floor and held them out. ‘You’re pretty good for an old guy,’ said Ali.”

  Even though he fought for another nine years and twice regained the world championship that had been stripped from him in 1967, Ali never got back to being the fighter he was before he was forced into exile. When he beat Foreman in Zaire in 1974, he won by using his brains. He sucked George in with the rope-a-dope; he didn’t beat him on physical ability as much as by employing a brilliant fight strategy. He used his intelligence and general boxing savvy and let Foreman punch himself out, then he just took over. Against Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manila,” Muhammad won on pure guts. For the most part, his speed and movement were just memories, but he showed the world he had the heart of a champion. In terms of raw courage, I think it was the best effort of his entire career.

  Ali and I have seen each other off and on over the years—the last time was when the Toronto Argonauts hosted a fundraiser for Parkinson’s research in 2002—but we never discussed our fights. Even though Parkinson’s has pretty much shut him out from interacting with the world, Muhammad retains a certain grace about him no matter what happens. I don’t feel sorry for him, mainly because I see him as a happy person. I see him as a spiritual person. I see him with his family. I see him surrounded by love—just like me, in a way. And that’s what makes life worth living.

  When I see Muhammad today, I see a caring person … a person surrounded by people who love him. He’s always receiving constant adulation, no matter where he goes—and so he should. He’s got to feel good about a lot of things, even though he has difficulty communicating those feelings. Take a look at his face; does he look unhappy? I don’t think so. He knows he’s loved and appreciated. He knows he’s still the center of attention. He looks at peace with himself, despite the physical impairment.

  When Ali lit the torch at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, I thought it took a tremendous amount of courage. Even with his shaking and tremors, there was something profoundly touching and dignified about it all. And for a few beautiful moments, the whole world celebrated with him.

  THREE weeks after “The Second Reckoning”—May 25, to be exact—I was ringside at the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska, to provide color commentary for the TVS network’s coverage of Joe Frazier’s second defense of his undispu
ted title, against Ron Stander. Les Snider did the blow-by-blow coverage, while Don Chevrier, a fellow Torontonian, was the host.

  The first fight I worked as a color man was with Howard Cosell: Ali vs. Ernie Terrell at the Houston Astrodome on February 6, 1967. I’d also been behind the microphone for a few bouts on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That subsequently led to ABC hiring me to provide color commentary alongside Keith Jackson and Chris Schenkel on a weekly fight show from New York for seven weeks in 1973. The network flew me in from Toronto in the morning, picked me up in a limo at the hotel, and then I’d do the show at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum before flying home the same night. They paid me pretty good money, too.

  I was proud of my commentary work—and judging by the fan mail ABC passed along, the viewers appreciated it, too. All I tried to do was comment from a fighter’s point of view—tell what was happening and convey what both men might be thinking. Is the other guy hurt? Is he taking advantage of his opportunities? That sort of thing. There wasn’t a lot of prep work involved because, unlike today, there was rarely any film to look at ahead of time, so I’d just kind of wing it.

  It’s amazing what a different perspective you get from ringside. When you’re in there throwing punches, trying to take the other guy out, you can’t see what you’re doing wrong. You perform by instinct and reflexes. On the other hand, when you’re describing a fight from right up close, you see a lot more—and sometimes it almost looks like it’s happening in slow motion. I found it very interesting.

  Concurrent with my appearance on TVS, Don Dunphy penned a lengthy column in The Ring entitled “Give Up the Gloves and Grab a Microphone, George!” He wrapped up his treatise with the following:

  “If George Chuvalo is to continue fighting, and I’ll bet he does, why don’t they give him a chance to win the title by bringing back fights to the finish? I can just see the news report: Jan. 8, 1975: MIAMI (AP)—Heavyweight champion George Chuvalo successfully defended his crown tonight when former champ Muhammad Ali dropped from exhaustion after three hours and fifteen minutes of a brutal scrap. Although beaten, Ali was jubilant in his dressing room when he learned that he had gone farther with Chuvalo than anyone in boxing history. ‘I told you,’ Ali said over and over again. ‘You wouldn’t believe me when I said that I would last longer with Chuvalo than Joe Frazier did. I beat his time by half an hour! I hope George gives me another chance.’”

  Well, Frazier vs. Stander wasn’t going to be a fight to the finish, but it did promise to be a little different—and I was pleased to be invited to be part of the show. For starters, Omaha was far off the beaten path for big-time boxing. Joe Louis (exhibition) and Sugar Ray Robinson (vs. Don Lee and Benny Evans) had fought there way back in 1949, but for the next 20 years the city was pretty much in the twilight zone when it came to showcasing the sweet science. But then Stander arrived on the scene.

  At a blocky 5 foot 11 and 230 pounds, Stander—a.k.a. “The Bluffs Butcher”—was built like a tank. Hailing from Council Bluffs, Iowa, right across the Missouri River from Omaha, he’d turned pro in 1969 and reeled off 13 consecutive wins, including a six-round decision over my one-time sparring partner Joe Byrd, the father of future IBF/WBO world champion Chris Byrd. By the time he got his title shot with Frazier, Stander had fought in Omaha 17 times en route to compiling a record of 23–1–1, which included a knockout of Earnie Shavers and wins over Thad Spencer, Manuel Ramos and Mike Boswell.

  If ever a fighter personified the hopes and dreams of his hometown fans, it was Stander. Unpolished but disarmingly polite, he said all the right things to visiting reporters anxious to find a new angle to write about. “I’ll fight any human being alive … and most animals,” was his trademark expression. When somebody asked if he’d ever been knocked down, Stander’s response was, “Yeah, by a cop with a nightstick.” And like his hero, Two-Ton Tony Galento, Stander had a well-documented taste for beer: “How much do I drink? I lose count after the first case.” It got to the point where the “Who Is Ron Stander?” storylines emanating from Omaha were so numerous that on fight night thousands of his supporters were decked out in souvenir straw hats bearing the inscription “Who The Hell Is Joe Frazier??”

  Stander’s wife, Darlene, was equally quotable for the gentlemen of the press. Mark Kram of Sports Illustrated reported that the night before the fight she barged into her husband’s hotel room just as Ron was showing Kram “how he was going to twitch when Frazier knocked him out.”

  “We’re $250 overdrawn at the bank. What do you think of that? And we’re two months behind in our mortgage payments. What do you think of that?” shouted Darlene. “God, I’m telling you … it’s a good thing I know Frazier’s going to do it, or I’d whup you myself!”

  That’s exactly what Smokin’ Joe did, of course.

  An hour or so before Frazier entered the ring, when I dropped by his dressing room to wish him luck, I found him totally focused on destruction. Then I went to Stander’s room. We chatted for a minute or two, and when I turned to leave, Ron asked, “Don’t you have any advice for me, George?” I told him to try to get inside and shoot his uppercut.

  That turned out to be a pretty good tip—at least for the first round. Stander staggered Joe in the opening minute, but by Round 3—when Les Snider memorably observed, “And the claret begins to flow!”—Frazier’s piston-like jab and murderous left hooks were making mincemeat of Stander’s face. “It’s a sheet of claret!” Snider effused, in case there was a viewer out there who missed his colorful call the first time.

  Referee Zach Clayton mercifully put an end to the carnage in the fifth.

  Decked out in a snappy checked sports jacket that made me look like a 220-pound speckled trout, I climbed into the ring with Snider to do the post-fight interviews. Frazier said he was considering retiring for a while, “until somebody comes down to my plantation with Cassius Clay’s signature on a contract and three and a half million dollars for me,” while Stander allowed that “Joe didn’t hurt me too bad, just cut me up pretty good. He can crack!” Fittingly, the best post-fight quote came from Darlene Stander, when a reporter asked her what she thought of her husband’s effort. “I’m a realist,” she deadpanned. “You don’t enter a Volkswagen in the Indy 500 unless you know a hell of a shortcut.”

  Stander went on to fight for another 10 years before retiring with a record of 38–21–3. Ironically, his biggest post-Frazier win came three years later, when he KO’d Terry Daniels in the one round. Daniels had gone four with Smokin’ Joe in his first title defense earlier in ‘72.

  I wrapped up the summer by defending my Canadian title against Tommy Burns on August 10 in Nelson, British Columbia. In our first fight, two years earlier, Burns had managed to survive until 2:40 of the opening round. This time I knocked him down four times and busted a couple of his ribs before Dave Brown counted him out at 2:36. Frank Allnutt’s report in the November 1972 issue of The Ring put it this way: “Burns should never have been allowed in the same building as Chuvalo, let alone the same ring. Only the quick action by referee Brown saved Burns from serious injury.”

  What made it even more laughable was that poor Tommy had plotted a secret strategy to beat me.

  Six months earlier, after knocking out Charley Chase in Vancouver, I’d accompanied Burns to the town of Creston, British Columbia, to speak at a sports banquet. While we were there we worked out at a local gym, and Tommy picked up on the fact that the higher elevation was bothering my breathing more than a little bit. When he heard me wheezing, he got it into his head that if we had a rematch in one of the neighboring mountain communities, he’d have a shot at taking my championship. That’s how we wound up fighting in Nelson. And he would have been awarded the title by default if not for some fancy seamanship on the part of, ahem, Admiral Chuvalo.

  The day before the fight, a gentleman in Nelson offered a friend and me the use of his houseboat to do a little fishing on the stretch of the Kootenay River that runs betwee
n Nelson and the nearby town of Castlegar. He couldn’t accompany us, but we assured him that a couple of Toronto landlubbers were old hands at boating and that if the fish were biting we might even stay out on the river all night. The weigh-in at the Nelson Civic Centre wasn’t scheduled until 10 o’clock the following morning, so we figured to have plenty of time to catch our limit.

  With me at the helm, we chugged out into the middle of the river (I thought it was a lake!) and spent a leisurely day enjoying the sunshine and solitude. When darkness fell I dropped anchor … and interpreted the resultant clunk to mean it had hit bottom.

  Not quite, as it turned out.

  When I rose shortly after sunrise and turned the key to start the engine … nothing. The battery was completely dead because we’d fallen asleep with all the running lights on. No big deal, right? Just row ashore in the dinghy and call the owner.

  Well, there was a problem. By the time we made it to shore and found a phone, the houseboat had drifted out of sight downriver. The owner nearly had a stroke when somebody else called to report that it was heading toward the rapids and a high waterfall (apparently, one of the highest in Canada). Fortunately, the owner’s sons were on hand to speed out in a motorboat, and they were able to get aboard the runaway craft and steer it out of danger.

  Thus ended my first—and last—naval command. And the closest chance Burns would ever get to become heavyweight champion of Canada.

  ROUND 15

  A COUPLE OF WEEKS AFTER MY NELSON ADVENTURE, I was relaxing at home when I got a phone call from a guy purporting to represent a promotional group based in Montreal. We set up a meeting the following day, where he introduced me to a French-Canadian fellow who said that he and some Tunisian associates had acquired the exclusive rights to sell Labatt’s beer in Haiti, of all places. Their idea was to put on a big boxing show to mark the start of a sales blitz, and they wanted me as the headliner.