Plague of Strength

At 6′ and 210lbs, boxer George Chuvalo was not by any stretch of the imagination “big”, but with a neck an inch bigger than Muhummad Ali’s and a chest measurement four inches larger than the champ’s and a waistline two inches smaller, Chuvalo was considered a bruiser for his day. Though he wasn’t able to beat Ali in either of their two fights, the slugger went the distance with Ali both times, which led the GOAT to state that Chuvalo was the toughest man he’d ever fought… perhaps in part because the first time they fought, Chuvalo only had 17-days notice. And for good reason- George made up the difference between a shitty diet and very impoverished upbringing with a shitload of working out, adding unheard-of upper body power to his sledgehammer-like fists and an unshakeable iron jaw. 

If you grew up pre-internet, it is likely you tried some of the tricks George used when he was coming up- he’d do headstands to build his neck, except he’d do set after set of neck side bends while leaning against a wall for five minutes at a time almost every day of the week.  Then he’d chew a full pack of gum at a time to build up his jaw muscles (both of which were credited with the fact that no one could KO him).  Chuvalo’s losses typically came from big name champs like Ali, Foreman, and Frazier, lesser known champs like Floyd Patterson and Jimmy Ellis, and other perennial bridesmaids like Buster Mathis and similarly-built slugger Oscar Bonavena.

When in training for a fight, Chuvalo would:

1. get up at 5am for a 45 minute run, after which he would
2. go back to bed until 11am, when he’d eat his breakfast
3. at about 2pm he would go to the gym, where he would punch the heavy bag for stamina, the speed bag for co-ordination, exercise on a bicycle and skip rope. He would also shadow-box and have a medicine ball thrown at his stomach

Tragically, I could not get Chuvalo’s exact workout or discover where he lifted, though there are still vids of him lifting online as of 2003, and he was reputed to have had a 450+ bench in the 1970s and a bench in the mid 300s in his 70s.  A total gymhog from every account, the man still trained like a bodybuilder who boxes even today, as he’s well known for being insanely strong without being any kind of a showoff where he currently trains. The gym where Chuvalo trained was perhaps the oldest in Canada, having had its start as the Toronto Athletic Club in the 1880s and then transformed into a boxing-centric gym in the early 1900s by an owner who was an aspiring professional, Chuvalo trained at Sully’s Boxing gym alongside the Rock’s dad, Rocky Johnson, and other wrestlers from Stampede Wrestling.

If you’re unfamiliar with these guys, Canadian wrestlers of the 60s and 70s were strong in ways you have never seen in your gym. Rocky Johnson (the Rock’s father) put up more than his son on the bench, reputedly pushing as much as 555 for a single. Ric Flair also wrestled for that organization and likely breezed through that gym with his then-580 bench press (Flair began his career as a 280lb powerhouse-type wrestler), as did a bunch of other wrestlers out of the Hart Dungeon in Calgary, which produced some of the toughest and strongest wrestlers in the history of the sport, including Chris Benoit (450lb max), Superstar Billy Graham (585lb max), and the British Bulldog Davey Boy Jones (550lb max). It’s safe to say that not only did none of them follow a program, but that their training methods would leave Reddits in a state of catatonic apoplexy just from reading the volume.

And though the dude dropped out of school to box in the 12th grade, he’s still insanely well-read, which is rad- seeing a massive hole in his knowledge gap, he filled it by reading voraciously in his spare time, which may or may not have contributed to a 350+ bench press in his 70s.  Was he the best fighter to ever live?  Nah, but he gave the greats some real problems, and it’s not always the names you know that are the names you SHOULD know, especially when they stand as basically a one-man refutation of the idea that a big bench can’t lend itself to at least some success inside of the ring.

Wanna learn something about lifting? Well, you might want to find a different gym. It isn’t about the equipment, program, or diet, people- it is about the fucking work you put in, the sweat you drip, the attitude of the lifters around you, and the rabid focus you demonstrate when you’re under the bar.

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