George chuvalo was built like a rhino

Tua was probably the thickest-set boxer I've ever seen. Just cartoonish proportions.

 

George Chuvalo was built like the strongman of the early 19th century. I remember George more for his armwrestle with the Fly ( Jeff Goodblum ) . Put me off armwrestling forever.

 

You know oddly I always thought that facially Chuvalo and Oleg Maskaev looked similar. One however had the greatest chin in boxing while the other once hurt had very little punch resistance, was floored numerous times and lost all his fights by knockout.

 

I remember that movie, I think that was 86. He played Mickey the guy who's arm got broken arm-wrestling GoldBlum's character. He was really heavy around that time. In recent years he dropped the weight and for a guy who's 81, had 93 pro fights, his wife died, and lost 2 sons to drug abuse he looks great.

 

Nobody rag dolls George Foreman

 

George is a credit to boxing granted. He also lost every 'big' bout he was involved in and often 'whined' afterwards to the point of embarrassment. Spare me the Doug Jones stoppage, he was small and without the Ali fight was simply a small HW contender in the days of small heavies, Mike DeJohn never seemed to have that 'something' to propel him to solid contender status and the Quarry fight was, IMO, an anomaly; he had Chuvalo (in Cosell's words) a bloody, pulpy mess.
Frazier destroyed him (fractured eye socket) and Foreman had him IMO wanting to quit at the end (watch the fight). Ali endured punishment from George (oh, Ali pissed blood while George went dancing but both fights were CLEARLY Ali's. Patterson simply 'outworked' him. As Red said Ringo WAS a better fighter and may have put George down (debatable).
With all due respect, Chuvalo was a numbing body puncher, if he could establish that early on, which he didn't seem to do against TOP flight contenders/champions.
In closing a tough 'out' in any era but his head hunting shots lacked the power of his body attack which enabled numerous opponents to survive (at least of the contender caliber).
My $0.02

 

I read his biography - I thought he said he used to lift weights at one time.

 

Lesnar would have rag doll him no problem, bigger at least 50 lbs and a better athlete, not to mention his wrestling background.

 

You're right 'Combat'; he was built like a brick **** house.
But a few others responding have called him out as well as I did.
And I disagree with a couple of other posters who said his handlers didn't train him right.
How could you prepare him any differently? To George's credit he once said he'd wished he could have been more of a "stick & mover" but, with his skillset, was unable to do so.
As I said a tough out in ANY era but always failed to deliver in the "big ones".

 

Not even a near 300lbs former D1 Wrestler who won the HW strap in the UFC with strength and his wrestling alone? LMAO.

 

He trained weights since he was a kid. He could bench over 400 lbs later in life

 

I don't know how much George Chuvalo could bench press. Did anyone directly ask him? I know another George (Foreman) was directly asked the question in 2016. And he answered: "I could bench press 4,000 ....... calories ......."