George Chuvalo - how good was he?

He was a very good fighter, but he was obviously strong as an ox, and could take a crowbar to the jaw and stay up, but he just didn't have the skill of guys like Ali, Patterson and Frazier, nor the power of Foreman. Even if the fight wasn't very close, if you fought him, you knew you were in a fight.

 

I think Chuvalo had very good skills both offensively and defensively. He knew all the tricks in the book for staying alive when he was in trouble and had boxing ability that I would personally rate as well above average. I would have liked to have seen he and Quarry have a rematch as the first fight seemed a bit uncharacteristic of Jerry, but it was a good win for George nonetheless.

 

I also think that he was more refined than he is often given credit for.

 

Both the film and the contemporary reports reveal him a brawler with very poor skills. Wishful thinking, kind of like people claiming Max Baer had some skills.

 

You are mistaken.

If you ever meet George Chuvalo and ask him questions about boxing technique you will see that he is verry knowledgable.

 

Mistaken about what? On what I can see on film (people like to claim Sam Peter is unskilled, but he's a class above Chuvalo skillwise)? Or on what contemporary writers wrote about him?

 

Chuvalo has a extremely high KO ratio. Surprised when I actually saw that it was as high as it is.

And he really didn't hit that hard. Combination of respectable power with aggression I guess.

 

There are contemporary writers of every era who like to place the current crop under the microscrope and pick them apart with ridicule and criticism. In Ali's day there were plenty who called him a dancing loud mouth who bark was bigger than his bite. People say the same thing About Klitschko now. Nat Fleischer tore Joe Louis and many of his peers apart too.. At some point you have to look at things in more than just one perspective.

 

In case of Chuvalo, I can not just read, but can watch the film of several of his fights too. And he's nothing but a crude slugger, who is willing to absorb hundreds of punches to the head in order to wear an opponent down with attacks to the body in close. He has zero knowledge about long and mid-range fighting, or about defense.

 

this dude blocked punches with his face lol ...skill?
stop please ..your just attempting to come off as intellegent by saying something different then the norm ..

 

He was far from a crude slugger without defence. His hands were always up, and he didn't provide much area to hit cleanly. A crude slugger is Tex Cobb, not George Chuvalo.

 

show me videos of said fighter showing skills

 

George was a strong tough guy. He was in the ring with a lot of great fighters, Ali,Foreman,Frazier. George was pretty slow and easy to hit and could be outboxed but he went to the body well on Ali and he made the fight interesting....Chuvalo was one of the strongest fighters ever, solid legs and body (built a lot like a shorter Maskaev but Olegs chin was not of same calibur. He was 6" even and weighed about 225 lbs he had some good wins but not Champion material

 

Hands up, not much area to hit? What film are you watching? Is that why he was called by contemporary writers a punching target for skilled boxers? Just because you get low and rush inside in order to punch to the body, doesn't mean your head is protected, see Dempsey-Tunney either fight. You can pick up almost any fight that lasted at least several rounds, which wasn't against some tomato cans, and you will surely find in fight reports that Chuvalo was so good at absorbing punishment in order to land his own, and him claiming in post-fight interview he wasn't hurt by any punches and similar stuff. Early in his career he wasn't even a good infighter, but as he gained experience that part of his arsenal gradually improved, but only the ability to get inside and pound away, not his defense. His mid and long-range punching consisted of wild, very slow swings that could be seen a minute before he even desides to throw them.