Chuvalo, a fighter's life: the story of boxing's last gladiator

The inspirational memoir of the Canadian boxer who fought some of the greatest heavyweights in history, including Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, but lost everything outside the ring. From a tough Toronto childhood as the only son of immigrant parents, through a twenty-three-year career that earned him induction into the World Boxing Hall of Fame, to the public tragedies that decimated his family long after the cheering stopped, George Chuvalo tells his life story as only he can. Chuvalo was the longest-reigning champion in Canadian boxing history. After teaching himself the basics, he turned pro as an eighteen-year-old in 1956 and over the next twenty-three years fought some of the sport's greatest names: Joe Frazier, George Foreman and, most famously, Muhammad Ali (twice). Since retiring from the ring in 1979, Chuvalo has had to come to terms with a series of crushing body blows. His youngest son, a heroin addict, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two other sons died from heroin overdoses. His first wife, overcome with grief, took her own life. Yet Chuvalo has stoically fought back. He formed his Fight Against Drugs foundation in 1996 and has spent the past seventeen years travelling across Canada and to parts of the United States, talking to tens of thousands of students and young adults about what happened to his family. An inspirational story of a Canadian icon, Chuvalo is both a top-flight boxing memoir and a poignant, hard-hitting story of coping with unimaginable loss.