Bob Bozic, seen here at a cafe in Toronto in 2025, sparred with George Chuvalo as a teen.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Bob Bozic ran away from foster homes and lived on the streets of Toronto. At 15 the manager of the Landsdowne Boxing Club took him under his wing and he began to learn how to fight.
George Chuvalo, the greatest Canadian boxer of all time, trained at the same gym. When he was 17, Bozic was in the parking lot across from the gym when Chuvalo, the five-time Canadian heavyweight champion, pulled in and called him “Bobby.”
“I remember where I was standing,” Bozic, a former Canadian amateur heavyweight champion who is now 76, said on Sunday. “I didn’t even know that he knew my name. I’d never introduced myself.
“After all those years being homeless and having a terrible childhood, I suddenly realized that George Chuvalo knew me. That was the moment in my life where I knew I existed. He gave me the idea that you never give up.”
Chuvalo, who fought 93 times during a career that spanned 22 years, died on his 89th birthday on Saturday at the Chartwell Grenadier Retirement Residence in Toronto. He had dementia and had received care at the facility for 3 1/2 years. He had been unable to speak for the last 2 1/2.
George Chuvalo, five-time Canadian heavyweight boxing champion, has died
Chuvalo retired in 1978 with a 73-18-2 record. In 93 fights he was never knocked off his feet. Not by Muhammad Ali, who he fought twice. Or George Foreman. Or Joe Frazier. Or Floyd Patterson or any of the other elite boxers of his era.
Sixty-four of his 73 victories came by a knockout. He fought at Maple Leaf Gardens 20 times and climbed into the ring at Madison Square Garden nine times.
His most famous bout came against Ali at Maple Leaf Gardens on March 29, 1966. The former Cassius Clay won in a 15-round unanimous decision. They fought a second time in 1972 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. Ali beat him in a 12-round decision.
“He gave hard fights to a lot of guys and was beaten by a lot of guys,” Bozic said. “But George gave it 100 per cent every time he fought.”
Bozic went hundreds of three-minute rounds against Chuvalo as his sparring partner, once he had turned 18. Chuvalo broke Bozic’s nose four times, cracked his ribs and split his lip.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Bozic would know. He is a former prize fighter who won 14 of 17 of his bouts and once fought Larry Holmes at Madison Square Garden when they were both up-and-coming heavyweight contenders.
He fought hundreds and hundreds of three-minute rounds against Chuvalo as his sparring partner, once he had turned 18. Chuvalo broke Bozic’s nose four times. Cracked his ribs. Split his lip.
“We’d be sparring and go toe to toe,” Bozic said. “If you went toe to toe with George you are going to be the one that has to back up. You are going to have to give ground eventually.
“Both of our styles were very similar. We would slam each other and it would get heated. Our trainers would yell ‘time’ and tell us to back up but we wouldn’t. There were gamblers playing cards in the back of the boxing club and they stop because of the sound.”
Afterward, Bozic and Chuvalo would have lunch together.
“We never ever talked about sparring,” Bozic said. “We’d punch the hell out of each other, punches that would killed a normal person, but we’d still be friends. People would ask, ‘What is it about you guys?’”
Chuvalo is a member of the Order of Canada and was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. The George Chuvalo Neighbourhood Centre, a facility devoted to community use in Toronto’s west end, opened in 2019.
“He was more than a boxer,” Bozic said. “He came to symbolize a time when Canadians were nice but wouldn’t be pushed around. He was very kind and a great guy but if somebody tried to push him around they would have picked the wrong guy.”
Chuvalo’s son, Mitchell, recalls attending one of his father’s fights for the first time. It was the 1966 match against Ali at Maple Leaf Gardens.
The Chuvalo family gathers for Christmas, 1976. Standing are George Sr., wife Lynne, Vanessa, 8, and Mitchell, 17. Sitting on the floor are Steven, 16, Jesse, 12, and George Jr., 14.Dennis Robinson/The Globe and Mail
He drove with his mother, who was all dolled up in a fur. They walked across Carlton Street and he saw his dad’s name on the marquee.
“It was overwhelming,” Mitchell Chuvalo said in the spring of this year. “I remember seeing a tiny sliver of seats in the fourth row and that’s where we sat. I remember the smell of the cigar girls. The fight started and people were yelling at the referee. How can a six-year-old interpret it?
“I remember climbing into the ring afterwards and him holding me up and all the flash bulbs that went off.”
Mitchell Chuvalo became a teacher.
“I never wanted to be a fighter,” he said. “I knew from a very young age what boxing did to people. My father told me once that getting hit by George Foreman was like getting hit by a dump truck at 60 miles per hour.
“Anywhere we’d go in Toronto people loved my dad. I knew he had recognition. It could be a Bay Street lawyer, an opera singer or just a person on the street.”
George Chuvalo spent his last few years in a single room with a washroom, a bed that moved up and down, a television set and a tray with toiletries at his bedside. There were pictures pasted on the wall of people who loved him.
“Dementia is the long, slow goodbye,” Mitchell Chuvalo said a few months ago. “I’ve never met a fighter of any reputation in my life that could hide it, but he hid it into his late 60s.
“My father had been an articulate man. I think he started with a lot of brains. He came from working-class folks. He read a lot. But I think if he had to do it all over again he would.
“There has been an outpouring of love and concern that I’ve seen as he was going through dementia. It’s been difficult. Moments here and moments there.”
For the last year or so, Bob Bozic had visited him every two or three weeks. They are both of Serbian heritage and during his first visit Bozic greeted the great fighter with a few words in Serbian and shook his hand and reintroduced himself.
A tear ran down Chuvalo’s cheek. They had not seen one another in 45 years.
“George stared up and then his eyes started following me around,” Bozic said. “I wondered what was going on inside of his head but will never know.
“Did he remember me? I don’t know. But if it brought him even one minute of happiness I decided to keep making visits.”