Canadian boxing icon George Chuvalo, known for his two Ali fights, dies at 89

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

Sully’s Boxing Gym in Toronto, where Chuvalo trained during his career, confirmed his death in a social media post Saturday. The gym said Chuvalo died on his 89th birthday.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also paid tribute to Chuvalo, calling him “a heavyweight boxing legend, a family friend and a Canadian icon.”

“My thoughts are with all of George’s family and loved ones as we mourn his passing,” Ford said in a social media post.

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. “But I had close to 100 fights.”

Known for having one of the best chins in boxing, Chuvalo pointed out that it took more than the ability to absorb punches to record 73 wins and rank 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, while also exceeding the total number of fights that Ali, Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Mike Tyson had.

Before retiring in 1978, Chuvalo wrote in his 2013 autobiography “Chuvalo: A Fighter’s Life: The Story of Boxing’s Last Gladiator, “I’ll be remembered as a guy who fought the best of his time, beat a lot of them and lost to some others.”

“Not in the ring, anyway,” he says. “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.