Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Remembering George Chuvalo: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1970

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

In this 1970th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with George Chuvalo's son Mitch about the peaks and valleys of George's life.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, on his 89th birthday, five-time Canadian heavyweight champion George Chivalo passed away. The man fought 93 times, including a tilt with Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight championship of the world. And never once was George Chivalo knocked down. Think about that. You could say the same. about George and his personal life, which was riddled with tragedy. He lost three children and his wife to suicide and or drug abuse.

The man was a survivor, and I had a tremendous conversation with his son Mitch about the peaks and valleys of George Chival. Here's a meaty excerpt from episode 1,035 of Toronto Mike. Recorded with Mitch Chavalo in April 2022. To all who knew and loved George, especially his surviving son and daughter, my sincere condolences. Mitch, welcome to Toronto Mike. Hi, Mike.

Nice to be. here, thanks for inviting me. I met your father at a John Gallagher book launch at the Cadillac Lounge, and this was a few years back. And when he shook my hand, I honestly thought he was going to break it. It was quite something. Well, like all heavyweights, you must have a bit of a, a bit of a fish to be successful. Yeah, it's like the head of a hammer, right? It's like a mitt. I mean, It was incredible. But the big question I want to ask you off the top before we're going to celebrate your dad here and we're going to talk about. We're going to get into some weeds too and it's going to get real here.

But I want to ask you, how is your father doing these days? Well, I thank you for asking. And I know when people ask me this question, they ask it with, you know, beautiful intentions, hoping to hear something positive and heartwarming. but you know brain damage and dementia and Alzheimer's and uh CTE whatever you know categorization of cognitive decline you want to say my father's decline is it's not good right so he cannot he's bedridden Mike he's been bedridden for a couple years he cannot speak very well at all.

Most of the times he would be described as like semi-comatose staring off into space. It's an ugly and unfortunate ending to a life that's had, you know, peaks and valleys. But when people ask me that, and I thank you for asking me that, I wish I could say something better. What I can say, though, is that he's safe and comfortable, right? So, you know, he had COVID a couple years ago, but survived that, you know. So that was a fantastic thing. And that's a testament to his, you know, his internal strength. He still got that.

But unfortunately, his brain is dying and the body will hang in there. But the brain has its own timing and agenda. And when it stops sending positive signals to the body, then and only then will it be all over. So, you know, death is never an easy thing. But we're, you know, almost at the stage where, gee, you know, what kind of quality of life does he have? And I ask those questions all the time of myself. Right. And I certainly know when it's my turn to go, I'd rather, you know, have my cognitive capacities and being able to communicate, you know, with people I love and care about.

And he can't even do that anymore. So it's kind of tragic and kind of sad. I'm so sorry to hear this and I suspected as much of even when I met him at that Cadillac lounge of John Gallagher. I actually had a feeling. This is, I'm just going to be completely honest. I hope you'll be completely honest for this whole conversation. But I actually had a moment where I felt like, and I, you know, John was kind of a friend,

still is kind of a friend and he was a client because I was producing his podcast with Peter Gross, Gallagher and Gross saved the world. But I had a moment of like, I'm not so sure like maybe I wasn't so sure your dad should be. out and about like that being kind of carted around to meet people. He didn't quite seem aware of where he was and what was happening. Well, I think what the underlying, your underlying position, anyone's underlying position on that is, you know, what is, you know, when someone goes into cognitive decline, are they then to be, you know, shunted away to a quiet little room where, but we know, and the doctors told me this.

any kind of stimulation he can get and people meeting him and people expressing their love and concern for him. I have nothing but good things to say about, you know, the last couple of years when he was still relatively fluid cognitively. Good point. And I have no regrets or second thoughts in getting him to meet people because I think my father is regarded as, you know, a treasure. a Toronto, a Toronto treasure, a West End Toronto treasure, a Canadian sports icon for, and for numerous reasons, post-boxing career, so many people wanted to connect with them, too. So I know that that was good for him, that, that stimulus to the brain where he would try to

remember an old friend or someone would come up with a story that sparked a memory. I can only say positive things about that. Yeah, there are some people who believe that there's some kind of shame. in that and you should hide people and put them in a place where, you know, they can have, quote, unquote, dignity and air quotes. I don't believe in that. I think the more open discussions we have about, you know, what happens to older people when they go on to cognitive decline, and certainly fighters and how to protect fighters and what we can do with regard to boxing

becoming safer, all those kinds of issues were stimulated when people saw George in his various stages of decline. So I have certainly no second thoughts or I'm not apprehensive about what I did at all. I think it was good for him. No, good points. No, absolutely great points. And you're right. You're right.

It's that dignity. But there he was. You know, enjoying a meal at the Cadillac Lounge, meeting people who loved to meet them. Like I know myself. It was like, you know, hey, Gallagher, get out of the way. That's George Chival. Well, Johnny's not very quiet when he comes into a room either, Mike. By the way, he's got a hell of a handshake.

I will say this, and I've shaken, and I always ask John to wash it first. I just want to say. Good luck with that. Yeah. And then I take a shot of penicillin and then I get ready. But John, he's got a mitt. Like, I will say he, maybe he learned this, you know, from your dad, but he's got that one of those handshakes, which is designed to crush bones.

Yeah, really. So anyway. I'm not sure if John had an amateur background in boxing. He might have, or he might tell you that he has. Yeah, he might have. You know, it's just, you know, when people are in that macho environment, they have a tendency to overindulge and trying to demonstrate, you know, that they belong there, right?

Right. I've seen that many times in the past. So good on Johnny. Well, that's why I never felt comfortable in those circles. I just simply couldn't break bones of the handshake. But listen, the best thing about COVID was the fact we stopped shaking handshap. Hands. Did you?

Little fist bump. Right. I like the fist pump. Okay. Mitch, did you ever fight? Like, was there ever a point in your life where you thought you should follow in your dad's footsteps? No, no, no, no, no, no. I, um, and I'll speculate as to why I never became a box because no one, no one really

knows why people do things, what their ultimate motivation is. They'll tell you what their ultimate motivation is, but there's probably so many things that they're not even conscious of. Right. I was around boxing on my life, and I don't look at it with rose-colored glasses whatsoever. So very early on, I realized that it was a sport of extreme exploitation. It was also the sport of the underclass. So most fighters come from a lower middle class to very poor, in terms of socioeconomics,

of very poor backgrounds. And it was one of its supposedly redeeming features is what it is that it was a great way to climb the socioeconomic ladder when you didn't have much else. But what you ended up seeing were poor kids who didn't have anything to fall back on who rose to a little bit of fame and then we're left destitute because of, you know, being exploited by managers, trainers. promoters, having a feeling for fighting too long,

not having any kind of life skills to fall back on once boxing ended. And there was that element. I didn't come from that background. I came from, you know, at different times in our family life. We were middle class kids, aspired to be upper middle class kids, whether that was an actuality.

And whether my family ever retained that or not, I'm, you know, still debating in my mind. But regardless, I didn't have, I never needed to be a fighter, Mike. And I think that's the key point. If you want to be a good fighter, it's not that you want it. It's that you needed. And I never needed that, right? So I was a pretty good student.

I always wanted to, I played football at university. So I always had that intention of furthering my education, which was so good for me. And on top of that, and this brings us back to George. I never knew a fighter, you know, once I got to be, you know, to my early teens, I never knew a fighter who had a career of any length or reputation that did not suffer major cognitive damage. And I mean everyone. Right. I don't mean most.

I don't mean, you know, the only one. I, every single one suffered cognitive damage, getting hit in the head, regardless of how well trained you are. destroys brain cells and leaves you cognitively compromised. And I was so, but I played football too, right? Right. And, you know, I played in the southern United States for a little while, too. So, you know, people didn't know about it back then. And brain injury, traumatic brain injury, TBI in sport, was not even spoken about back

that. It was kind of, even when they were talking about fighters, they would kind of laugh it off. Yeah, like shake out, shake with the cobwebs, just shake it off. Absolutely. That's right. That's right. Even when I was played in high school football, I remember guys going out and getting dinged. And the trainer who was usually the teacher would put a little smelling salts or ammonia under the nose.

And they go in two plays later. Now, you would never do that now. Right? You would never do that now. But I think instinctually I realized how harmful it could be on the human experience, especially your cognitive health, your thinking patterns. I saw guys mumbling, shaking, and he's punchy, ha, ha, ha. But I always thought it was way more tragic than comic.

It was always treated as comedy. But in the end, it was very tragic. And these people ended up destitute. So I and my dad, to his credit, never encouraged. any of us to be fighters, right? So even though my brother Georgie, who was a good amateur fighter, I saw the pressures,

I was a little older than him, and I saw the pressures that he went through, you know, guys in the crowd yelling, kill Chivalo! You know, just, yeah, like it was like, he couldn't escape that. Like, there was no, he couldn't just be himself,

even within the ring. He had a reputation to live up to him, and I think that hurt him a lot. Well, his name was literally George Chival. Yeah, so, yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, and even at a young age, like, I saw my brother who was, it was an amnory, and he didn't know who he was fighting and he showed up to fight someone.

The guy would be like two, two and a half years older than him. Now, when you're when you're seven years old, that's a big difference, right? Right. So, yeah, he, no, to make a long story very short or attempt to, no, I never wanted to be a fight. Now, I play hockey. Yeah. And back in the groovy 70s. Broad Street bullies.

Yeah, I mean, it was as violent an environment you would ever want to be. Hey, I saw a slap shot, okay, Mitch? Yeah, there you go. There you go. Yeah, I mean, I fought often back then. You know, I was a good aggressive hockey player. I was actually going to be, there was talking me being drafted into the OHL. But, you know, I want back then there were no scholarships for hockey.

I wanted to pursue my education. So I stopped and I started focusing. on football. But hockey was a terribly violent game back then, and I had my share of fights. And I did okay. George, we show me a few tricks, always throw the uppercut. Hockey players always throw over the top. You come up underneath. Right, the haymakers or whatever. Yeah. The one hand at a time, just shoot the uppercut. They don't expect that angle, right? So my dad did teach me a few things with regard to fighting that I don't usually brag about, but I'll do a little bit here. Well, before we explore some of your father's prowess,

as a heavyweight. Greatest heavyweight this country's ever produced, in my humble opinion, but I'll get your input on that in a minute. But share with us all, all the FOTMs listening right now. Like, what is your vocation? What did you end up doing with your life professionally? Well, I became an educator. I'm still at present, hopefully soon to retire a teacher. I teach at the University of Toronto schools, which is a private school run by the, well, affiliated with the University of Toronto. I've taught there for about 20 years, but I've taught another almost 15 years prior to that at public schools in Ontario. So I've taught at five different schools.

I started out as an English teacher, but I've taught, you know, the gamut. I've taught history, English, as I just mentioned, special ed. I had classes with kids with reading problems. I now teach health and phys ed. Well, good for you. That's such an important, my mom did the same, being a teacher. here. That's wonderful. So good on you for that. I think that's great. Now,

your dad. So I'll give a little bit of the bio here, but five-time Canadian heavyweight champ, two-time world heavyweight title Challenger. But when I look back, and again, I missed your dad's career. I'm a bit too young. So I, you know,

I learn all this from, you know, I have people on the show and we talk about Legends of the game and I talk to Hebsy once a week. And so I know the legend of George Valo. But it's the two fights, I would say from what I've gathered, it's the two fights against Muhammad Ali that are sort of the sort of made the legend

of your father because your dad was never knocked down. He had 93 professional fights in his career. And he, again, Muhammad Ali a couple of times, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, like some major heavyweights. None of them were able to knock your dad down. Right, right. So, yeah, my dad always had mixed feelings about the never being knocked down part of his career because that's what people

had a tendency to focus on. And when people talk about my father's career, that's almost always what they allude to first, right? He was tough granted. And that creates kind of a mental picture of my father being a K-Men like slugger who took three or four punches to get one. And I think for the casualist fan, that's about as far as they're going to go. But my father's career was much more than that.

He had a, he has one of the highest knockout ratios of any fighter in the heavyweight division. He had, I think, 64 knockouts of 93 fights. Yes, the fights with Muhammad Ali are for the casual fan, kind of the benchmarks or what they have a tendency to reference George by. But, you know, my father beat a lot of great fighters. he lost some fighters he should not have lost to. I think a lot of that has to do with his being really poorly managed and trained early on in his career. And he had to take some time off and buy out his contract. And then he got hooked up with Teddy McCorder and Irving Ungerman.

And my father's career, really, I would say from, let's say, in 1960, late 64, early 65 until around 1970. be. There were about five or six years where he was, you know, regarded as one of the best heavyweights in the world. So, I mean, the five-time Canadian champion thing, it really was, it's kind of a strange thing because he lost two fights to Robert Kleru in Montreal, where it was very, very difficult for, you know, an Anglo fighter to get a decision. And that was the time of the quiet revolution in Quebec and Quebecua nationalism was, you know, very strong at those times. So beating George, I think one of the things I like to talk about with the Kaleru fights,

and not to take anything away from Robert Kaluru, he was a very, very tough individual, kind of a wild brawling type, and he fought George very aggressively. But of the three fights, the Canadian press had George winning all three. But when you're fighting in Quebec, and you're fighting a Quebecois hero, it's going to be tough to win the decision. And my dad never badmouthed fighting in Montreal, even though he got, when he figured in the short end of the stick a couple of times

because he loved that fan sentiment where you're behind the guy at all, like he'd love that. And, you know, people love George early on in his career in Toronto, and certainly he was a fan favorite at Maple Leaf Gardens, but never the rabid kind of, love for him that a guy like Claru got for sociopolitical reasons, right? So my dad was an immigrant, a son of immigrant people from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Most people in Toronto didn't even know where Bosnia-Herzegovina was. It's a little, the ID factor wasn't as strong. But yeah, so he lost to Clareau a couple times. Then the Canadian Boxing Federation would not have anybody for him to fight so they'd strip him off the title and say it's my dad's fault. Well, it's not my father's fault to be the promoter and make sure that, you know, people want to fight him because nobody wanted to fight him. And they took it, but he wanted back anyway. He finished off his career, three knockouts of guys who challenged for the title. Trevor Berwick was mentioned as Trevor was just starting out then. And my dad

had a contract to fight him for $25,000 deech in, in Toronto and the Boxing Federation, which was centered in Halifax in Trevor Berwick's hometown said no come fight here for 10,000 my dad said are you nuts I'm not going to you know fight for less than half I can make here so he packed it in wish Trevor good luck and and retired from boxing so yeah the the five-time thing is people go why was it five times well you know the two losses to claru and then the Canadian boxing federation not being on top of their game and trying to play bully boy with him that was that was never a good deal because he But he always had, my father always had a difficult relationship with the Canadian boxing federation because he never, he thought that they were just, you know, some appointees who knew

very little about fighting and, and did not, they were a federation and name only. Like when my dad should have had a crack at the British Empire title, which is, I think, called the Commonwealth title now, but it was a British Empire title back then. They never pursued the British Boxing Board to give my dad a shot at any of those guys Bodell, Buggner, Henry Cooper, none of them. They just wouldn't do it. They were, it was an ineffectual organization. So for them, then after the facts start going around ordering my dad,

that he has to fight this guy for that much money. My dad said, are you out of your mind? So, you know, it's not, it's not like boxing, scheduling a boxing fight is, you know, you have to have a promoter and you have to have interest and money has to be put up. It's not like a hockey game where it's scheduled every Saturday night, right? Right. These things just, they don't happen overnight. Do you think, and I mean, your bias aside, and it's clear this is your father we're talking about,

but do you think your dad is the greatest fighter this country has ever produced? I think my father's the most resilient fighter in this country has ever produced. You know, my father did not have the opportunities. Well, anybody fighting in Canada, really, is going to be shortchanged a little bit. Because aside from Montreal, and there were times when Halifax was a, was, you know, a thriving boxing city. But for the most part, you don't get the great trainers, you don't get the great sparring. And there are times where that now when Irving Ungerman and Teddy McCorder got involved

with my dad in 64 and 65, that changed a little bit from my dad. But still, you're basically, you know, it's kind of like trying to be a hockey player in Brazil. It's, you know, you just. There's not a huge history of it. People are crazy about another sport, and Brazil would be soccer. And, you know,

yes, you can achieve some notoriety, but you don't have all the cards in your favor, so it's problematic in that regard. As far as the greatest fighter, I'm not enough. I'm a boxing fan, and I know a little bit about boxing. Well, I was a boxing fan. I'm less so now.

But is my dad the greatest? I don't know. I mean, that's a very subjective. Sure. offering either way, like if you think he was or wasn't, but there have been great fighter. Look, look, are you, how can you take anything away from Lennox Lewis? I mean, Lennox was such a great fighter, so courageous. The two guys had knocked him out, he came back and beat them, you know.

He totally whipped Mike Tyson. I think Lennox is, not only in the conversation, it's very debatable as to who's better than Lennox. And being a world champ, of course. But my dad, um, did fight. fight, and I always tell this to people, if you want to know what kind of a fighter, my father was, my father won, oh, I did what was, he lost against Floyd Patterson in 1965. And that fight was the ring magazine, the Bible of boxing, that was chosen as the fight of the year. So people can say whatever they want about my father, but I will answer, my father fought the fight of the year in 1965 in the whole world of boxing.

And that's, you know, exclusive territory for only a few people who've ever put on the gloves. So, yeah, I'm okay with that, how he's regarded in terms of being the greatest or, you know, what is shortcomings? Or that's for other people to debate. I enjoy watching my fights. My dad's fights, pardon me, my fights. That's how close you are to. I've had to fight for him. Your dad's not so good and I had to go fight for him.

Right. But, you know, I don't think it matters. All I think is that people respected what he did. And, you know, in terms of his being a tough guy, the ultimate tough guy and resilient person, you know, he's in that conversation. That's good enough for me. Okay. Now, so you're right. It's very subjective and is he the greatest and all that.

And there's another guy who gets in that conversation that your dad worked with. I'm going to ask you about in a minute. But back to the word. You just dropped respect. Do you think your dad has received the respect he deserved for what he accomplished in the ring? Did he get his flowers, if you will? Well, I think that people have viewed now, Mike, with YouTube,

where people can go back and watch fights from the past that are posted. I think people have a, can have a more discerning eye as to my father's capabilities or shortcomings. So I know that whenever I went elsewhere in the world outside of Toronto or Canada to the United States or even, I remember being in 1974 or 75, I can't remember what year it was. I was only a young guy. I was 14, 15 years old. San Juan Puerto Rico to watch Clyde Gray Fight Angel Espada for the Welterweight Championship of the world and 15,000 people

My dad was down there with CBC to comment Do the commentating on the fight And he took my And in lieu of getting paid he took my brother and myself And a rabid crowd of You know crazy Puerto Rico is a crazy boxing environment It's unbelievable. It's such a rabid pro-Nationalist, pro-P Puerto Rican crowd.

It's unbelievable. Anyway, before the fight started, my dad was announced as being there. And the ovation they gave him was my brother and I were taken aback. We're just, you know, that was the first time I realized that my dad was deeply respected outside of Toronto. where, you know, the boxing press doesn't even exist here. So you'll get people who cover hockey, curling, horse races, whatever. And then now they're writing about boxing, like they know something. And, you know, they always demonstrated to me, for the most part,

what they did know about fighting as opposed to what they knew about fighting. So, yeah, respect. I always, yes, and then I go to places like the International Boxing Hall of Fame or the World Boxing Hall of Fame of the National Boxing. National Boxing Hall of Fame, places in California and New York State. And my dad would always have lineups galore people, you know, glowingly, you know, seeing his praises. So I think in the end he did, but there was a period of time just post career where I don't

think, I think people took shots at him because I think what we mentioned earlier, you know, fighters, you know, they have as difficult a time as any athlete. when they retire because they have nothing to fall back on. A lot of them are around unsavory characters throughout their boxing career and they tend to socialize with those people after and people get desperate and do stupid things and then with cognitive and physical decline,

they get involved with all kinds of stupid things like drugs and alcohol crime anyway. My dad did not have a great 10 or 15 years after he retired. And then he got into promoting fights and training fighters. And he was doing well with that. But then he was always arguing with the boxing commissions here in Toronto, who didn't know very much and tried a couple of times to make him a scapegoat for their failings.

So, yeah, you know, I would say yes overall now, but there were times where it was tough for George to be, you know, a retired fire. It was tough. now in the end. And then, of course, what transpired with my family in terms of, you know, addiction issues. And my father's willingness to go out and speak very openly about those things, I think, endeared him to a lot of people. And I know, you know, some of us in the family had trouble with that, you know, that he was kind of being exploited and opportunist in that regard. And regardless of my feelings, I have to put those on the back burner and recognize that he helped a lot of people,

right he helped a lot of people who looked up to him as you know that that piece of canadian rock that we're all kind of cut from right so you know Canadians in general are tough strong people and if they could identify with my father and and his challenges and it helped them then you know that's a fantastic thing has your father been named to the order of Canada he has good good I was because that to me is a slam dunk to be to be frank so what year do you remember are approximately what year oh my it's okay it's okay early early 2000s that would imagine early 2000 okay i know he was inducted into the the ontario sports hall of fame in 1995 my father's Ontario sports hall of fame Canadian Sports Hall of Fame um the world boxing hall of fame in los angeles the national boxing

Hall of Fame in California. He's got some, what do they call it downtown? The Walk of Fame, the Star. Yes, right. Yeah, so, yeah, he's been, he's been, he's been lauded. He's been, recognized multiple times. Okay, good, good, good. Now, just to go back to the two fights against Mohamed Ali.

So the first one, which was March 29th, 1966 at Maple Leaf Gardens. After that fight famously, Ali said about your dad, quote, he's the toughest fighter I ever fought. What do you know, like talking to your dad and being so close to your father? Like, what can you tell me about his relationship with Muhammad Ali? Well, let's put that comment by Muhammad into context. You know, Muhammad went to have so many tough fights after George, right? In fact, too many.

to the point where it hurt him, right? So, but that that quote has to be contextualized. So at that time, he said George was the toughest man he ever fought. Now, Muhammad went on to have tough fights with a lot of other people. Joe Frazier, of course, George Foreman, Kenny Norton gave him tremendous trouble for three fights. You know, Ernie Shavers, he had so many tough fights later on. Like I said, too many.

So, yeah, that fight with George, George took it on 17 days notice. He was a fill in for Ernie Terrell because the people in Montreal, the fight fell through because when Mayor Drapeau got word that Americans were going to boycott Expo 67, which was a huge cultural phenomenon, you know, promoting Montreal and Quebec. and Canada, it was kind of like a world's fair, that it would be boycotted if they would allow the fight to happen in Montreal. Montreal pulled out the fight, and they looked for George to fill in on 17 days' notice. So I remember those times rather vividly. I was only a six-year-old boy,

but I remember those days leading up to the fight, the press involved, people in town, My dad changed his routine a little bit. He was working with a guy called Lloyd Percival, one of the leading sports scientists and a Canadian and a Trononian at that for those 17 days. And he always mentioned that Lloyd was instrumental in helping him get his anaerobic capacity up. I saw my dad doing all kinds of high intensity after his regular training, doing a lot of high intensity circuit training.

I think often now as a phys ed teacher, that's kind of the genesis of my being intro. Why this, as opposed to that, in terms of a form of training and how it benefited him. And it got him ready for the fight. Yeah, it was, it was, it was, a lot of it's black and white in my mind, Mike, you know, with cameras, lights going off, flashing. But yeah, I remember, and I remember the fight.

I remember going into the fight with my mom holding, my hand crossing Carlton Street and how beautiful she looked. I remember the old maple leaf gardens, the blue and white, the paint, the layers of paint on the wall going through the turnstiles at about not much, not much lower than head height for me, you know, pushing through the smell of the smell, everything. Like it's, it's an overwhelming sensory experience, the crowd, the roar, the light, the heat, the smell of stale popcorn and ice in the gardens, you know, because they put down, they put down boards over the ice, yeah, I remember it all, of course. And I remember standing up on my seat telling the referee to get out of the way so my dad

could hit him. Well, your dad was not knocked down, of course, as we discussed. And George meted out a lot of punishment to Muhammad that, you know, people say it was like a one, one-sided affair. Now, George, George hit him with some great shots to the point where Muhammad had to go to St. Mike's hospital after to get checked. You know, he was urinating blood. and his kidneys were in rough shape.

A funny story many years later in the late 80s. My dad and I were invited to Hartford, Connecticut, where Rocky Marciano Foundation, a charity, would put on a fundraising dinner, and they had all kinds of people there. And Muhammad was there. And Muhammad got, he couldn't speak very well at the time. He said,

Mitch, that the first time after I fought your father, I couldn't sit down for a week. He goes, I was peeing blood for two weeks. And the worst part, no coochie-coochie with the wife for a month. Your dad did that. My dad, yeah. Never forgot. That's what Muhammad. But, you know, the interesting thing about Muhammad, I had an opportunity to meet him a couple of times.

Always, you know, when he was in cognitive decline. And so he was always very carnal. He always had some kind of, you know, joke about women and things. Like, you know, yeah, he was a great activist. Yeah, he was, you know, at the center of so many things that they were so important and world-changing. But he was also like a guy's guy who liked to tell jokes and being around, you know, young people and laughing. And, yeah, he's a wonderful guy. You mentioned moments ago about, you know, your family's, you know, personal tragedy.

And Mitch, I'm wondering if. you're comfortable if we go there at this point and just to speak a little about what, you know, your dad's been through, what you've been through in terms of family tragedy. Are you okay with that? Michael, I'm an open book. Open book. Okay. Listen, listen, I'm a health and phys ed teacher.

Right. So, you know, I used to be a gym teacher. Then I became a physical and health education teacher. Now they've switched it to the biggest lens you can ever put on your health. I'm a health and physical education teacher. So anything that I can speak to that can help somebody or, you know, scare them off doing certain things, I'm happy to do. So, Mitch, I mean, I have been reading about what's happened with your family. And the more I read, it's so incredibly heartbreaking and sad.

And I can only imagine what it's like for you. So, again, thank you for being so open and honest about all this. but let's talk about this. One is okay. So your mother, Lynn, you mentioned, looking so beautiful in Carlton there. So she gave birth to four boys by the time she's 20 years old. One of them being you. Yeah, I was the first one.

I was born like four days after she turned 16. That in itself is quite something, only because I have a... George would have been arrested. You know, times were different back in the 50s. Right. Right, well, you said it, I didn't. Okay. So, thankfully, we look at the relationships differently now, right? Right.

So, yeah, I guess she would, yeah, four days after her 16th birthday, she gives birth to you, Mitch. And then she gives birth to, by the time she's 20, she's given birth to four boys. Now, let's start. Let's talk about Jesse just briefly here. So, so, again, I'll try to keep it together while I talk about this, but. We're good. We're good. We're good.

Mid 80s, 1985, he's only 20 years old, and your father discovers his body. What happened with, what happened to Jesse? Well, Jesse was a heroin addict. He, my father tells the story of Jesse,

tearing up his knee on a motorbike, and then after the operation being put on opioids, and then after, like, when we're talking, in 1984, 85, in 1984, actually, when the accident happened, and being taken off opioids and going for street drugs after. And while that is true, there are other factors.

I think my brother Jesse was, he was a troubled kid in terms of his interaction with the law. He was a very, very aggressive, of, if there is anyone in the family, he should have been a fighter, it should have been Jesse, because he could punch like a, like a, like a, like a,

mule kick. And often resorted to that when people would bother him about his, he was electrocuted. While my dad was training to fight Ernie Terrell, my brother, while with my mother at a friend's house, crawled underneath

a table and been on a live cord and an open-ended cord that, you know, wasn't properly. and electric, it almost killed him. And he required a bouts of plastic surgery to make his mouth functional. But there was always that, that obviously distinctive look to his lip structure. And people were very, people could be cruel. You know, they call it.

I don't even want to say on air what people would say to him. And anyway, my brother, you know, after a while would have enough. And then he just react violently. And I always tell us to people and people don't believe him. there was 11 years old, he knocked cold unconscious 18-year-olds who were mouthing eyes. Can you imagine the fast-twitch muscle fiber explosive capability of an 11-year-old knocking out 18-year-olds? So he was well known to the police because of his aggressive nature. And I will go out in public case say that the police did not treat him well.

I mean, he came home with ties with like cigars burning his forehead. Of course, you can't go. Now it's a different world. The cops don't have that kind of power, right? So, but he, he, he, he, he built up a lot of resentment inside himself. And, um, uh, he was a, he was a drug, a casual drug user before he, he, uh, went to heroin. Now, so, we're talking about soft drug smoking marijuana and hashish, you're thinking about injury, right?

But, um, I, I, I, and my parents were, were, were broken. They, they'd separated at the time because, um, my mother, my father was having a hard time paying the bills in transition after boxing. And my mom who was working at Northwestern Hospital felt she wasn't getting the support from George when it came to the boys, is ostensibly Jesse and my, his older brother, Georgie, the second, third in line, second youngest brother. And my mother left the home. And when that happened, things went downhill in terms of the family.

structure, right? So, yeah, just after my parents actually went to dinner together to discuss things. And when they came home, my brother Georgie and my dad discovered my brother on the floor of a bedroom, he put a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Oh, my God. He killed himself. He killed himself. So it was, that was, you know, I was living in Guelphalph at the time. the time. I finished university, but I was working at a pub and trying to pay off some student debt and working at a YMCA with creating youth strength and conditioning programs. And I just

remember driving back. Well, I kind of remember driving back from Guelph when I got the news and just how I made that trip back without crashing the car, I'll never know. But yeah, that But that opened up a Pandora's box for other people, my family, to take their own life when the pain became way too overwhelming. And suicide is a totally still misunderstood phenomenon. I understand the pain that takes people there. What they don't realize is the pain that is left for others to deal with after. words is a hundred times the pain of what that individual is going through. But of course, you know, when you're in so much pain, you know, you're solely focused on

reducing that pain, right? You're not worried about what happens. Also, I believe when you're in that mindset, you believe the world is better off without you. Like it's as if you're doing a favor to your family by exiting. I think, Mike, that's a great point with reference to my brother, Jesse, because I know he felt very bad about being a heroin accident. He felt shame.

I didn't know this. I found out about this afterwards. He tried to hang himself a couple months before. George didn't tell anybody about that. That was problematic because, you know, if I'd known about that, if other people would have known about that, we would have made sure that Jesse went to get some serious psychological help. But again, you know, we're talking about 1984.

1985, Mike, you know, teen mental health or, or my brother was, you know, 20 years old at the time, but, but, you know, teen mental, no one even discussed that. Right. People didn't even talk about that issue. And if, and if it was recognized as being a reality in your life, you kept it in the closet. You did not. There was a stigma.

Yeah, right. There was an absolute stigma attached to it where when it came to mental health, like it was a weakness. Oh, you can't cut it. You can't, you can't cut it. And therefore you did. you buried it under the carpet and you swept it. So imagine a guy who's reputed to be the toughest man in the country,

the son of that child admitting to like a mental health issue. It was an impossibility back then. The vocabulary did not even exist for that to, you know, be a possibility. Mitch again, and now sadly I'm going to say this a few more times, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to deal with this. Now listen, if the only tragedy to happen to the Chivalo family was in 19, 1885, 20-year-old Jesse taking a gun and committing suicide. If that was the only tragedy to afflict the family,

it would be just horrendously, horrifically sad. But it's, I'm not done. Like, Georgie, Georgie Lee, I know he liked, I guess, when you're George Chivalo Jr., you'd go by Lee, maybe. What name did your brother prefer to be known? Well, he had numerous, he had numerous names. And I think, you know, your point is, you know, well taken that, you know, he was very uncomfortable with being George. George Chivalo Jr. So, yeah, he called himself Lee Chivalo.

He also called himself Lee Shepard. Shepard was my mother's maiden name. Yeah. Right. Brother G. He did not like, I don't think he was ever fully psychologically comfortable with being George Chavalo Jr. And I don't blame him for that. he also had problems with the law and he was one thing I know about George he was he was

a bad alcoholic well I don't know if there's ever a good alcoholic but but I don't mean that in terms of you know a person's morality or character I just mean that you know alcoholism is by its very nature bad it's a terrible addiction that still is you know problematic for a lot of people And he was a bad alcoholic, but his personality would change, right? So I don't think he was ever comfortable in his own skin. And after coming out of jail in 93, he wanted to die. You know, he wanted to, he would publicly express that he wanted to die. He came out of jail, he got a whole bunch of heroin.

And even though it's listed as a heroin overdose, he died at the Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street. he purposefully overdosed and killed himself. So that was, you know, that that was devastating, absolutely devastating. Like, for my parents to have one child die and then to have another one die. Right. It just, it was just, it was overwhelming. And I, you know, for people who don't know the story, the four days later, my mom took her own life. And as mad as I was and am sometimes still to this.

day because my mother used to say to me, Mike, you know, remember one thing, son, good times and bad times, neither one lasts. So there's always an oscillation between those two, you know, extremes of the human experience. She obviously for a minute forgot about her own advice and she swallowed a whole bunch of pills that she'd had stored. She found them. My brothers had store some opioids from, I don't know, a huge cache of them and they stored them in the house. My mother came upon them and had them hidden just in case something horrific happened again and something did, unfortunately. And she took them and she drank a bottle of whiskey and she took them and she wrote a note that

says, I look for love. There's none anymore in the world and she took her and she swallowed them. I went to lie down in the room where my brother Jesse. died and she passed away there. So fucking sorry. Like, okay, so this is your second brother just, again, your second brother, essentially, even though it might be listed in the, as an overdose of, on heroin. It's really a suicide, essentially.

So Jesse kills himself in 1985. Georgie Lee kills himself in 1993. And then two days after the funeral for Georgie Lee, your mom, your beloved mom, Lynn, takes these, I guess, takes these, you know, right, prepares the suicide note and takes a lethal dose of prescription pills that, as you point out, was stolen by Georgie Lee and your other brother, Stephen, who we're going to get to in a minute, who had stolen it, I guess, in like a drugstore heist or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

My brothers, my brothers were, it went to jail several times for drugstore heist because, you know, they get desperate, right? Sure. Going on that inward journey that took them away. It's addiction, right? It's so horrible. And, you know, my mother was an alcoholic, too. And she had consumed, you know, a large bottle of whiskey before she took the pills, too.

So, you know, I can't leave that out of the equation, too. I wonder if she, listen, people experience pain in different ways. I don't blame anyone. Right. But just, you know, my overall recommendation is, you know, we avoid those kinds of traumas that make us do those extreme things, right? So that's the hard part, right?

And everyone reacts differently to different things. These are not easy problems to solve, right? They're difficult problems to solve. And your mom, Lynn Chavello, was only 50 years old when she... Yeah. And your dad, George, he discovers her body, I suppose, Lynn's body. I believe that to be true, yes, yes.

Okay, and this is 1993. And then, I mean, as sad and horrific as this story is, we're not done yet, unfortunately, because a few years later, 1996, your other brother, you, of the four boys, you are the only surviving boy. I mean, you should point out, your sister, Vanessa, is a survivor much like you. But Stephen, is this an overdose on heroin, an accidental overdose, or is this also Stephen taking his own life at the age of 35? Mike, you ask a great question. You know, he had just gotten out of jail too, you know, being incarcerated, how the mind works. And he'd split up with his wife. So I think he was on emotional doubter too because of that.

So, yeah, he went and got a, you know, a rather lethal, not long out of jail. He went and got, of course, when you're off heroin for a while, you don't build up the tolerance, right? So if you go and you get a large dose of it, a very potent heroin, you know, it took his life. Now, he had expressed in letters to people that he was very down beforehand. But understandably, you know, he was, he'd been incarcerated for a while. He didn't have the opportunity to take care of his family. He felt very guilty about that.

He was splitting up with his wife who had, you know, basically taken on the role of being, the sole parent, and she's a wonderful woman who survived a lot, my sister-in-law, Jackie. So, you know, I think he was certainly depressed, and I think he knew of the possibilities, right? I don't think he was, you know, ignorant of the fact that if, you know, he took a pretty potent post or a pretty potent dose of heroin, there might be the opportunity that he might not make it. And he died. He was staying with my sister, Vanessa, around Davenport, road and Avenue Road in an apartment. And she came home from work. The doors were locked. She

couldn't get in. And my poor sister found him with a needle in his arm and a cigarette burning. So yeah, that was that was tough. I was in Los Angeles with my wife at the time. And I just got down there and I was meeting my in-laws for the first time. And we had a beautiful street party that night in, you know, West Hollywood is a small little Latin community. I remember, there's definitely like the Christmas lights hanging and the smell of beautiful Latin American food and everybody was happy and dancing. And then I got that message. And I just did that, you know, with a 180 again, which, which happens to people when they hear traumatic news. And I'll always remember that too. My beautiful brother, Steve, whom I was very close with when we

were young and yeah i felt terrible about that too but and then you start to think you know that your life's a little bit cursed mike you know well i want to ask you like at this point i don't even know how to phrase this but is it possible there's almost like muscle memory like you're you're kind of you've you've experienced this trauma before like you've now at this point this is again i know you're very close to stephen so again i'm so i'm so sorry but that's so you've lost three brothers and a mother in you know a relatively short 11 years i guess it's a total span, but like, does your body at all, is there any, like, calluses that form almost? I want to say, like, some kind of almost numbness after experiencing that kind of trauma

four times at 11 years? And I'm not a psychiatrist, so in any... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, listen, I'm not the first person to say this, but the first cut is the deepest, right? So, I think, I think after my brother Jesse died, I was in, um, I was in, um, psychological shock for some period of time after that. And I took care of my health the way I needed to do that. And that's to throw myself into exercise.

Like exercise was a place where my mind could be free, right? Focusing on. And then I took a year off to travel the world, right? I went to India and was I seeking enlightenment? No, was I seeking meaning in life? Yeah. Did I find it? I don't know.

But I had those opportunities to take that inward journey myself and try and figure out, you know, what it transpired. And that time after Jesse died, really laid out a framework for me by which, you know, whenever I was challenged psychologically, I knew that I had a game plan and a place to go to that it'd get me through it. Was it easy? No. But did I know what worked best for me? I would say that after four times I did, right? So exercise, speaking very openly about these issues like I do to you, and I do to young people, key and critical,

having great supports in your life, whatever it is, some creative element to your life where you can still find beauty in the world. All those things are very important to people when they've suffered some kind of trauma, psychological trauma, right? So how do you get back into finding meaning and value in the world? You have to discover what works for you. And I tell this to young people all the time. Life is not always going to be rosy.

When it gets difficult, you have to know how to take care of yourself, right? You have to be really self-aware. You have to have that what I call the metacognitive piece in play. Like think about your thinking, right? Think about how you're thinking, right? And be able to step back and pause and take a look at things. So I had opportunity to build those structures into my life. And I promote them all the time with other people, right?

find out how you take care of you best. And when something like that happens, you know, don't be looking for a plan then. It's too late. You're in panic mode. No beforehand. What do I need to do to make myself feel good both physically and psychologically, right? So what are my support systems?

Well, before I press record, you and I were bonding over our mutual love of cycling. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. In this home, and I have not experienced anything to the degree that you have, but in this home, we literally refer to my daily bike ride as my medicine. Like this is, go ahead, sorry. Absolutely.

That's beautiful. I love to hear that as elephant and as that teacher. Exercise is medicine. It's the best prescription. You know where your mind goes. You can free float, right, and not attach to anything, or you can focus in like a laser beam and you'll get your most creative thinking, right? All while you're doing what your body is supposed to be doing is being active.

right so and not only that this what whatever you want to call it that feeling of the beauty and pleasure hormonal response self-esteem i don't care what it is after you're finished and done and showered and you know and you're more alert every cell in your body is turned on you feel alive and feel what it's a beautiful it's a beautiful way to reaffirm how beautiful it feels to be alive every day no i'm with you 100% there so hearing you you know talk it's like okay so there some people might might hit the bottle. Other people might, you know, hit the needle, if you will,

needle and the damage done. Shout out to Neil Young. Yeah, right on it. And then there's others who would channel it in the way you have, which would help explain why you're a survivor. Okay, so, by the way, coincidentally, I suppose,

the most recent guest on this program who sat here in the studio with me is a gentleman named, a young man named Derek Christoph, who has been rapping under the handle decisive. for many years. And he was prescribed opiates for an injury.

And very, very quickly, like, we just unbelievably quickly became addicted. And he was open, honest about this just on, I think it was Friday. Was it Friday or Thursday? I think it was Friday. He was open and honest about this. And just hearing his tale about how his opiate addiction

led to behaviors from him that were not in his character at all. Like he abandoned his child. his wife and just so this whole like idea of a prescription drug like a percazette or something of ending in a heroin addiction which is something you know your dad has said about jesse for example and uh far more common than you would ever realize absolutely brother yeah you know one of one of the you know when i was with my dad uh the uh the last few years uh the last few years people would come up and tell their story. They would tell or the story of a loved one.

And what you realize is that, you know, we're still a hurting nation, right? We have people, you know, the wonderful thing, if there is a wonderful takeaway from my family's story, is that because it's so open, people felt a need and a passion to share and, share their story and let them know that our family's story has been inspirational to them. So that conversion of a negative to a positive, not everyone gets that, right? So, yeah, addiction is still, you know, the major health problem in this country. I'm convinced of it because, you know, it's a physical health problem, but it's born of probably mental health issues that don't get addressed, and it leads to more mental

health issues. So, you know, and the things that cause addiction most probably start, most probably start to my way of thinking when people are young. So, you know, some kind of trauma causes people to be addicts. There are doctors out there who talk about this. This is not a new insight by me. This is spoken to directly by people who are much better versed in the topic than I am. But, you taking care of our young people so they're not traumatized and don't have to turn to drugs and alcohol as an escape. You know, let's take care of each other. Let's take better care of each other.

And I know that when my dad got up to speak to people, and he was very open and he could be at times very shock-oriented in the things he said about what happened to my family. I know that people knew that he was coming from a good place and he didn't want them to experience the same things that we as a family experience. And that was, and people, I could, I can feel that. And I could see the way people would come up and speak so intimately and beautifully

and the things they would say. I mean, after my mother and Georgia had died, you know, I go back to the house and there'd be like 30, 40 letters in the mailbox. And each one was a heart-wrenching story from all over Canada, North America, and other places in the world like Sweden. I remember a couple of letters from Sweden. And people would tell about what happened to them.

And, you know, that there was still light at the end of the tunnel, wishing us all the best. And, you know, that was straight, pure from the heart. That was an adrenaline shot of love, right? So, yeah, so many people are hurting out there. And so many people have a great story to tell. And that's why they connect. That's why they connected with George, right?

Now, I was going to ask you about your father. You know, I mentioned you were a survivor. You know, Vanessa is a survivor and George. My sister. Yeah, please. And what a strong individual she is. You know, wasn't easy growing up a woman in the Chevalho household. It was not.

But she's a strong woman. And she's raising her. kids she's does such a great job she's a fantastic mother and a beautiful person and and she's got stories to tell too well so a woman's perspective believe me so how much she's the youngest of the five how much young i know i mentioned you know four boys by the time your mom is i'm the oldest and she's the youngest we're the bookheads so what's the gap there in years eight year difference okay so there's a little break between number four and number five i'm just thinking of my mom my mom My mom always said she wanted a daughter.

Come hell her high water. She got one. Okay, good. And I'm glad I was going to ask you what your relationship was like with Vanessa, of course. But thank you for sharing that. And then about your dad real quick here. So your dad, again, you know, you kind of told us what happened after Jesse passed away. But then with Georgie Lee, his beloved wife, Lynn, and then a few years later, Stephen, how, like, how does your father survive this trauma in his, you know, is into.

little family. Well, I, the time after, after, you know, my dad remarried relatively shortly after my mother died, right? So I was not happy with that. But, you know, who am I to say how people survive these things? I've got my, my modalities and the way I deal with things. And then, of course, he had his too. So, you know, I'd be lying if I was to say our relationship was good for maybe five or six years after my mom died.

You know, I was newly married and I went on to do my own thing. And but I think my father getting up and, you know, I think he was a, he was a friggin' laser beam when it came to talk. People did not talk about addiction, right? And when he got up, this tough guy. this this this this this toughest guy the toughest guy this country could produce like yeah you'll listen and he got up there and you know at times he would break down and he would you know cry and people in the crowd would be so i i think that that affective modality that emotional appeal when he can do that when he could be so open about it i think he got great feedback and love and people loved him for it

but I know, you know, he'd call me up years later and he said, you know, I just want you to know, son, that, you know, sometimes I feel like shit, having to talk about what happened to our family. You know, I make a living at it. And it's, you know, I feel I own the exact language, but he felt like he was taking liberties. and that he was being a little, he didn't want it to be seen,

like he was taking, he was being opportunistic, but he was always worried about the fact as to whether or not people would see he's going to speaking to people, and being paid for it. If, you know, because he had to make a living. Sure, of course.

If that was being a little too, what's the word? We'll just say opportunistic. We'll just leave it at that. And he would call me at two in the morning. Sometimes we'd have conversations that, you know, that was the gist of the, conversation. I won't tell you the particulars, but we go to some pretty deep places, right?

So, but that's what all fathers and sons should do. They should have those opportunities to go to deep places, right? Okay, Mitch, you told me you're an open book. So I have to tell you that a past guest of this program is the wonderful Mary Ormsby, who wrote for many, many years at the Toronto Star. She actually dropped by her for her husband, Paul Hunter, who also wrote at the Toronto Star for many, many years. They're a lovely couple, actually. But Mary Hornsby was, had covered a story for the Toronto Star before she was retired by Torres Starr. That's another story for another day. But the story, so this is, again, I'm only speaking about things I literally read about in the

Toronto Star here, but you mentioned briefly that your father got remarried shortly after your mother took her own life at 1993, and your dad's second wife is Joanne, and maybe I'll use your words instead of reading what Mary wrote for the Toronto Star. but there's some, you know, very serious accusations. And there's a legal matter at play here between you and Vanessa, I suppose, the two surviving children of George and... The powers of attorney for George. The powers of attorney and...

Yes, right, in legal words as well. So you, maybe let's turn it over to you, because I have read these Toronto Star articles, as many people listening have. But what's happening there between Joanne Chivalo and Yvallo and you? You and Vanessa, and where is it at right now in front of the courts? It's a never-ending saga. So George had decided he wanted to get divorced. And why did George want to get divorced?

Well, he hadn't lived at his house for two years. My father did very well on a land deal. and he made a fair amount of money. And but at the same time, I think his cognitive health was deteriorating. Anyway, he sells the land. And he, all his life, it's kind of, have you ever seen death of a salesman?

A lowman, yeah, yes. Salesman's got to have a dream boy. And my father bought a piece of land, a long, long time ago back in the 80s and held on to it and then sold it for another piece. Anyway, he was out at Hamilton Airport and he made a substantial amount of money off of it. Okay. So he and his wife bought some properties. But I started to notice George going in like having memory issues, just like the common markers of, you know, a healthy mind.

Cognitive impairment, we might call that. Cognitive impairment, right? So I said, dad, go get your brain checked. He would always make a joke about it. And my father being an articulate man and operating a lot from road to memory, if someone asked him about the Ali fight, he was spot on. And if he was questioned about what he had for breakfast, he couldn't remember. So what are you doing about it?

He would avoid it, really. He would just bury his head in the sand. So he told me that his relationship with that woman was going downhill. And I started to know he wasn't staying at that house anymore. He was staying at another house he had in Rexdale with his mother-in-law and his brother, who was a lifelong criminal and had just been out of jail. So he was living there. And I asked him why he was out of there.

He goes, well, I'm divorcing her and we don't get along anymore. But I said, but why are you here in the first place? He said, I was kicked out because I had bed bugs. And that was over two years ago. So he tried to go back into his house and he was arrested. Back to the house up in Caledon. And he was arrested. And this would be maybe we call this the matrimonial home.

Is that the home we're talking about? Yeah, the matrimonial. And he was arrested. And I couldn't. Why would my father be arrested? Trying to get back into his home home that he had been, kicked out of for two years. And then there was a restraining order put against them.

Well, that's when I decided. And he'd initiated then divorce proceedings. He says, Mitch, I need your help. I said, how do you want me to help, Dad? He says, I want you to be my power of attorney. You and Vanessa. So we became powers of attorney. Well, once his wife figured out that we were powers attorney,

and I could have access to funds because I knew my father was going to have to go into a home. I could see it. He was declining rapidly. Right. He couldn't, couldn't bathe and take care of himself properly. His personal hygiene went down. He would have moments where he was so forget.

He wouldn't know what city he was in. And not only that, his capacity to even walk was being, like, it was shutting down. So I knew that there was going to be an issue with that. So he started divorce proceedings, but I also knew that he needed funds

because he was going to go into. He was destitute. He had no money. Can you believe my first? father who made over three million dollars in a land deal and who was getting paid up to $5,000 to speak to people, had no money in his account and he came to me for money. I said, something's not right here. Something is amiss here. So my sister and I became powers of attorney. We got a hold of some of his investments that were paying dividends. We made sure that my

father had monies to survive on. That's when the other party got involved. freaked out and got a lawyer. Well, she's had three sets of lawyers. The first two didn't work over. So she got another set of lawyers. And they started challenging my power of attorney. They also challenged very intelligently the divorce proceedings. See, my dad had stood up in court and said, I want a divorce. But they kept stretching it out, stretching it out, knowing all along that my father was in cognitive decline and that eventually he wouldn't be able to be. have the capacity to make any kind of a judgment, right? So very intelligent on their part.

They stretched it out. And then at the end, my father was, he didn't know time or date. You know, he was, he was so vulnerable, right? So that's where that went. So, but we did get access to his monies. And I made sure that I got him into a good home where he was cared for. And the dividend from is an investment and the, an investment and the sale of one of his houses supports him being in in the home he's

in right now. So most recently, she tried to sue me and four or five other people, the lawyers involved in my dad's friends for something akin to like psychological trauma. But that got thrown out of court for $2.5 million. She tried to sue me for that. I have this sense that she just thinks that it's an endless money grab with my dad. because her last name is Shabalo. It's not. My dad will be taken care of properly. And no matter what she tries to do, I'm going to tell her and anybody else involved right now, I'm doing what's best for my

father. I'm taking care of him because other people had abandoned him. And as much as my father and I have had difficulties over the years, I wasn't going to abandon him. And I wasn't going to see a life that had both triumph and tragedy in it and tragically. You know, so I don't I made sure that he was safe and comfortable. And if I go down for that, you know what, I'm okay with that. You know, if taking care of my dad is a bad thing and making sure that he was well taken care of after he was, his needs were ignored, then I'm good with that. That's a hill you're willing to die on.

I'm willing to climb that hill multiple times with people on my back. Now you mentioned off the very top of this program, just to reiterate, though, your father, although his cognitive abilities have declined. And on that note real quick, I need, because I have a, I was the power of attorney for my grandmother. And she, she, there was a point where I would go visit her in the long-term care facility.

And she had no idea who I was. Like we would just, so the last several years of her life, she died at 98, but the last several years of her life, she had no idea. I was her, you know,

her first grandson. Is that where we're at with George and you? Like, will George know that you're in? George, George, George now, like,

I'll walk into the room. His eyes won't even shift. Like, he's staring at the wall. And if I get in, close into like I'm leaning into the camera now if you can see me. I'd like if I get that close, hey George, hey George, how you doing? I might speak to him a little bit of Croatian because that was his first language,

not that my Croatian is very good at all. Right. But that kind of stimulates the memory bank, you know, the deepest memories, the early memories are the ones that go last apparently. Well, you know, have you tried the music, like playing the songs. Yeah, we play music. My nephew, Jesse, is wonderful. He brings over music and plays them all.

bunch of songs and he seems every once in a while to recognize the lyric but you know even that light is starting to fade right no i know i've been there of my grandmother and it's uh it's almost like you bury them twice like it's like you know she she's gone but her heart will beat for several more more years and then you will you know bury her again it's uh it's a long it's a long long slow goodbye right long slope. But I mean, yeah, I guess the point I wanted to reiterate is that he is comfortable and safe as we speak right now. Right, he is. Thank goodness.

No, that is most important here. Okay. And again, I'm not, thankfully, I'm not involved with the situation with Joanne, your stepmother. I know that term is a funny term, but the woman who married. Not my stepmother. We are ostensibly the same age. That's a veritable impossibility. She's not my stepmother.

Right, well, the woman who married your father. My dad's step in life. Yes, right, exactly. But you're looking out for your dad and he's safe and as comfortable as can be. How old is your dad right now? He's 84, Mike. 84. Okay, strong body, strong physical health.

The mind just went before the body, which happens all too often here. Okay, so let's leave it a lighter note here. And then obviously, if there's anything I missed you wanted to talk about before we say goodbye. But this has been a wonderful conversation about. your father and your family. But in the West End Phoenix, there was an article I read about your dad and you. I know this neck of the woods.

I know the junction quite well. I used to live at Jane and Dundas for a while, and my boy played at George Bell Arena. And I know the junction quite well. But tell me about the Pegasus. Well, the Pegasus was a bard. It's no longer operational that I used to take my dad on Friday nights. And he used to, you know,

music being, as you mentioned earlier, being a great way to stir memories, I would, he would listen to a few songs that I get him up. And he could, and he could sing, you know, Elvis tunes, Jerry Lee Lewis tunes, whatever the tune was. His memory would come alive again, right? Those memories would come alive. And, you know, seeing that he was born in, that he was born at St. Joseph's Hospital, grew up on Hook Avenue, just north of Dundas, east of Kiel. I grew up later on just near Old Western Road in Davenport. That was something akin to a full circle move, like bringing them back. And then, you know, people would come in to the Pegasus.

Tony Segueris was the owner of the bar. I taught his younger sister, Sandy, who went on to be a world boxing champion. Hey, nice. So not because of anything I did. Well, you never know. But there's no, there's a boxing connection there, I guess. Anyway, they made things very comfortable for George there. People who grew up in that neighborhood who had heard, maybe even some of them did not, had never met him before, but had heard stories about him would come up and relay that, you know, my uncle says he saw you when you were 19 at the corner of Pacific and done that, you know, something like that. And there's that opportunity again to stir memories, right? I found that to be a very enabling experience for him.

It kept him more solvent cognitively than, you know, if he had been just sitting in front of a TV somewhere. People loved it. And the guy who wrote the story, Joe O'Connor, did a fantastic job of kind of displaying the mood and sentiment that happened there. And it was a lovely way for my dad to kind of say goodbye to the neighborhood before he had to be put into a home. I was happy for that experience.

Before we leave the junction here. So you're, okay, you're probably wondering what an FOTM is, because I dropped it. It means friend of Toronto, Mike. So Mitch, you're now an FOTM. So you can have that forever. And a fellow FOTM, great friend of the program, is a gentleman named Joel Goldberg. Sure. And lots of like, I had lots of dealings with George.

I remember we were talking about different things, even Great Lakes Brewery, a sponsor of the program. But many dealings in back in like 20, 2018, 2019. I guess he was involved in the opening of the George Chavalo Community Center. All right. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. So I just, yeah, so I just wanted to shout out. It's not a community center.

What is it? Yeah, please clarify. It's called a neighborhood center. Okay. So your standard community center would have like, you know, fitness area, gym, all kinds of, it's more a neighborhood center. It's a drop in spot for the elderly or kids looking for a place to do homework. or LGBTQ plus place that's safe haven for them.

Yeah, it's a wonderful little spot next to the rail path. Yeah. And my dad grew up not far from there. He actually went to school at St. Rita's up the street where my grandmother who worked at Symington and DuPont used to come during her breaks and throw a pomegranate over the fence. or where she was plucking chicken at Royce DuPont Poultry Packers. Right.

No, I know this again. I know this name is well, but, you know, there's a scene in the hurricanes. Speaking of, you know, Toronto and boxing, okay? Right. Where the car crash in the hurricane is that bridge where, I guess, Dundas and Kiel, and then it becomes, you know, Annette, actually, it's a net. Annette becomes DuPont at Keel, I want to say. Right, right, right.

Anyway, that bridge there is kind of in the movie, because, of course, there's a whole bunch of Toronto stuff in that movie, but we're the hurricane. But I digress. I just thought I'd bring up a little boxing connection to that neck of the way you're talking about. But amazing. So shout out to FOTM, Joel Goldberg, who, by the way.

Yeah, he co-founded Electric Circus. And just the other day I spoke with Ken Pompeii, who's Dalton and Tristan Pompey's father. But he was the cowboy dancer on Electric Circus. So we actually talked about Joel just earlier in the week. So a lot of Joel content here. I'm trying to like. All right.

Last couple of fun facts is one is that we all, at least if you're my age or older, you probably remember seeing the remake of the fly with Jeff Goldblum. So I just want to share the fun fact that your dad was in the fly. Yeah, yeah. My dad's been in numerous movies, always playing some kind of, you know, the tough guy part. Yeah, yeah, he's got a type cast that way. and what I remember from I remember the scene of course where he gets his arm

but I also remember him talking to me when he was actually getting the arm like the process to go through that to make the actual artificial arm and all the detailing that went through it it was quite a complicated process that he spoke of he had his eyes opened up as to how much work it actually takes to make you know a modern film and all the all the people behind the scenes who are doing all that. I remember my late niece, Rachel Chavalo, she was a beautiful kid. She died at 30 of esophageal cancer. And I remember I have this memory of her actually seeing the movie and seeing her grandpa's arm get torn and her having that kind of visceral response to it, right? It was quite a scene. Like, even before I

knew that was George Chavallo, you remembered that scene. Yeah. If people look for the arm wrestling match with Jeff Goldblum's character and a guy named Markey. Yeah, Jeff Goldblum's eating a chocolate bar, and George makes fun of that. He's eating chocolate, like, rah, I guess his arm ripped up. Is that the biggest movie your dad appeared in? Maybe. No.

No, what is the biggest movie? It's the biggest movie my dad acted in, maybe. That's what I mean, yes. But he was, people might not know this. He was in the first Rocky movie, and he was also in Pulp Fiction. There are pictures of my phone. father in both those movies, like two of the most violent movies of the 20th century. Oh, because Bruce Willis's character was the boxer.

Right. So when he goes back, when he goes back, like when he goes back to the room to get his watch his dad brought back to him from Vietnam. This watch. He goes back. Yeah, remember that great, that was a great scene with Chris Walken. Anyway, he goes back to the, and Travolta's waiting to kill him there. He's in the toilet.

As you walk into the apartment with Bruce Willis, there's a big poster of my dad. that up in the wall, George Chivala Canadian heavyweight champion. I don't know how I miss that. That's my favorite movie of all time. I've seen it a hundred times, including that the Sinosphere on the biggest screen, you know, the IMAX screen. Watch it again. When he goes back in, you'll see.

Yeah. And then, and then in Rocky won the first Rocky. Which I love. When he, when Rocky's walking Adrian around, he's walking and she's skating. Remember he buys time from the Zamboni driver to, on their first date? And then he pulls out a pitcher, hey, this is me, a pitcher fighting so-and-so. It's actually my father fighting the Italian champion, Dante Canay,

and he's hitting him with a body shot, and Canay's feet are coming right off the ground. So, yeah. Now, these are fun facts, because this isn't even on, I couldn't find this in any bio or any wiki page or anything. This is a true fun fact that I had no idea about. That's amazing. Yeah, George, George,

George is immersed into the culture of, you know, violence. All right. You know what? You know what I love just as an aside? Yeah, please. I love discovering, and people send these to me all the time. Like, just like street art murals of my dad. There are so many, you know, in the GTA, you know, I find that amazing, you know,

street murals where pictures of my dad are on garages or on a wall, the rail pad, wherever it is. or my dad's name somewhere, you know, on a bridge, like, high above an intersection. Yeah, I just, I love that kind of stuff. Amazing. And the last fun fact I have before I turn it over to you is that, you know, we talked about great Canadian fighters and one that I remember quite well, because again, I'm a bit young to remember your dad's career.

But I followed every minute pretty much of Razor Ruddick's career. And your dad, from what I understand, your dad was training and working with Razor at the beginning of his career, especially the big fight where he beats Mike Weaver. Yeah, where he got his first big win, right? So my dad trained him. My dad said he was a phenomenal athlete. And he got, he was instrumental in training Razor to get his first big win over Mike Weaver. Yes, that's true.

And then they had a parting of the ways because, you know, egos get involved and people know better. and, you know, a couple people see their names in the paper once or twice, and their head swells to epic proportions and, you know, what he could be. But my dad always said he was a phenomenal natural athlete. He had those two big tilts against Tyson that were, you know, must-see TV for me and my buddies. And, you know, Razor didn't win him, but he, you know. He fought.

He pitched, man. He was courageous. If you take a look at the Mike Weaver fight, you'll notice my dad had him way more athletic, sticking and moving and throwing competition. and staying on the outside and using his length. And then that takes, you know, great conditioning to be able to maintain that for long periods of time. And then he got with other people who slowed him down and turned him into a one punch guy,

that mule kick punch, which was effective. But, you know, certainly I think he was a better conditioned athlete when he was training under my father. I'll bet. I'll bet. So, Mitch, I got to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And I'm so appreciative you gave me. all this time.