Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Peaks and Valleys of George Chuvalo: Toronto Mike'd #1035

Episode Date: April 16, 2022

In this 1035th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by George Chuvalo's lone surviving son Mitch Chuvalo who updates us on his father's health, shares stores of his father's heavyweight prowess, and speaks openly and honestly about the tragic deaths of his three brothers and mother. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

Tonight, in a 15-round international contest, world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali defends his title against George Chiavallo of Toronto, the Canadian heavyweight champion. This 15-round championship contest is coming to you direct from Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Greetings, everybody. No matter where you're watching, greetings from Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Greetings everybody. No matter where you're watching, greetings from Maple Leaf Gardens

in Toronto. We have a tremendous crowd, estimated at up to 14,000 people on hand for the heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and the Canadian champion George Shavalo. And with this huge crowd in attendance, there's a feeling of excitement and anticipation as both fighters are now in the ring. They have just put their gloves on, and we're just about two minutes away from the bell

for round one. Toronto. VK on the beat I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm a Toronto Mike, you wanna get the city love My city love me back for my city love Welcome to episode 1035 of Toronto Miked

Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta

Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Ridley Funeral Home Pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana, the lowest prices on cannabis, guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me this week to celebrate his father George

is Mitch Chiavallo Mitch welcome to Toronto Mic'd 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 fist to be successful. Yeah, it's like the head of a hammer, right? It's like a mitt. I mean, it was incredible. Uh, but the big question I want to ask you off the top before we're going to celebrate your, your dad here, and we're going to talk about, we're going to get, 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. Um, and I know when people ask me this question, they ask

it with, you know, you know, beautiful intentions, hoping to hear something positive and heart warming, but you know, brain damage and dementia and Alzheimer's and CTE, whatever, you know, 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 of 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, it's, 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, is that he's safe and comfortable. Right. So, you know, he had COVID a couple of 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's, he's 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, you know, what kind of quality of life does he have? And I ask those questions all the time of

myself. 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, 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 uh 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 to meet people it didn't 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? 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. 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 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 him too so um i i i know that that was good for him that that that stimulus to the brain where he would try to uh remember an old friend or someone would come up with a story that sparked a memory i can only say positive things about that um yeah there 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 in 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 into cognitive decline and certainly um fighters and how to protect fighters and what we can do in with regard to boxing becoming safer although all those kinds of issues are were stimulated when people saw george in his various uh uh stages of decline so i i have certainly um 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 him. Like I know myself, it was like, you know, hey, Gallagher, get out of the way. That's George Chaval. I know myself, it was like, you know, hey, Gallagher, get out of the way. That's George Chaval. Johnny's not very quiet when he comes into a room either, Mike. Oh, 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 that. 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 her 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. I mean, you know, it's just, you know you know when people when people are in that macho environment they have a tendency to overindulge and try to demonstrate you know that they belong there right so 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 hands like yes did you little fist bump right i like the fist bump 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 no i um and i'll speculate as to why i never became a box because no one no one really knows uh why 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. I was around boxing all 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 the socioeconomics, very poor backgrounds and and it's it was 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 right but what you ended up seeing were were poor kids who didn't have anything to fall back on who rose to a little bit of fame and then were were left destitute because of you know being exploited by managers trainers promoters um uh having a feeling for fighting too long um not having any kind of life skills to fall back on once boxing ended and um i there was that element i didn't come from that background. I came from, you know, a pretty, 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 attained that or not, I'm, you know, still debating in my mind, but. 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 need it. 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. Once I got to my early teens, I never knew a fighter who had a career of any length or reputation that did not suffer a major cognitive

damage. And I mean, everyone, right. I don't mean most, I don't mean, you know, the only the 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 and but i played football too right so and and you know i i played in the southern united states for a little while too so uh you know you can people didn't know about it back then and and uh brain injury traumatic brain injury tbi in sport was not even spoken about back then.

It was kind of, even when they were talking about fighters, they would kind of laugh it off. Yeah, like shake out the cobwebs, just shake it off. Absolutely. That's right. That's right. Even when I was playing 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 into place. 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 they, oh, he's punchy. 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 i was a little older than him and i saw the pressures that he went through you know guys in the crowd yelling kill shimalo um you

know just yeah like it was like he like he couldn't escape that like there was no he couldn't just be himself even within the ring yeah he had'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. And I think that hurt him a lot. Well, his name was literally George Cheval. Yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, and even at a young age, like I saw my brother who was an amateur and he didn't know who he was fighting.

He'd show up to fight someone. The guy would be like two, two and a half years older than him. Now, when you're seven years old, that's a big difference, right? Right? So, yeah. No, to make a long story very short or attempt to, no, I never wanted to be a fighter. Now, I played hockey.

Yeah. And back in the groovy 70s. Broad street bullies. Yeah. 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 uh i i i fought often back then uh you know i was a good aggressive hockey player i was actually going to be uh there was talk of me being drafted into the ohl uh But you know, I want, back then there were no scholarships for hockey.

I wanted to pursue my education. So I, I, I stopped and I started focusing on football, but by, but hockey was a terribly violent game back then. And I had my share of fights and I did okay. George would show me a few tricks, always throw the uppercut. Hockey players always throw over the top. You come up under the haymakers or whatever yeah the one hand at a time no yeah just shoot the uppercut they don't expect that angle right so my dad did teach me a few things regarding fighting that I don't usually brag about but I'll do a little bit here well before we uh

explore some of your uh 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 the FOTMs listening right now. 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 schools which is a private school uh run by the well affiliated with the university of toronto i've taught there for about 20 years but i've taught another uh almost 15 years prior to that public schools in ontario so i've taught at five different schools okay 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. 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 learn all this from, you know, I have people on the show and we talk about legends of the game and i talk to hebsey once a week and

so i know the legend of george chivalo but uh 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 um the the the sort of made the legend of your father because, uh, 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, um, yeah, my dad always had, uh, mixed feelings about the, the, um, never being knocked down, um, 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 caveman like slugger who took three or four punches to get one. And I think for the casualist fan, that's that's about as far as they're going to go. But my father's career was much more than that. He had he had is one of the highest knockout ratios of any fighter in the heavyweight division. He had, I think, 64 knockouts out of 93 fights. uh in the heavyweight division he had i think 64 knockouts out of 93 fights um uh yes the the fights with muhammad ali are for the casual fan kind of the the benchmarks or what they have a tendency to reference uh george by uh but you know um my father beat a lot of great fighters uh he lost some fighters he should not have lost to uh i

think a lot of that has to do with his being really poorly managed and trained early on in his career uh and he had to take some time off and buy out his contract and then he got hooked up with uh teddy mccorder and irving underman and my father's career really i, I would say from, let's say, 1960, late 64, early 65, till around 1970. 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 Clairaut 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 Quebecois 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 Kaluru 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 uh 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 and my dad never um bad-mouthed uh fighting in

montreal even though he got you know he figured the short end of the stick a couple times because he loved that that fan um uh sentiment where you're of times. Cause he, he loved that, that fan sentiment where you're, you're behind the guy at all. Like he loved 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 Claire got for, 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, the ID factor wasn't as strong, but yeah. So we lost to clear a couple of times. Then the Canadian boxing Federation would not have anybody for him to fight. So they'd strip him of 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 won it back. Anyway, he finished off his career, three knockouts of guys who challenged for the title. Trevor Burbick was mentioned as Trevor was just starting out then. And my dad had a contract to fight him for $25,000 each in, in Toronto and, and the boxing Federation, which was centered in Halifax in Trevor Burbick'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 five-time thing is people go why was it five times well you know the two losses to to clarou 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. Cause 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 in 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 the British Empire title back then. They never pursued the British boxing board to give my dad a shot at any of those guys. Odell, Bugner, Henry Cooper, none of them. They just wouldn't do it. 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 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? 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 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, 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

McCorda got involved with my dad in 64 and 65, that changed a little bit for my dad, but still you're, you're basically, you know, it's, it's kind of like trying to be a hockey player in Brazil. It's, you know, you just, there's know, there's not a huge history of it. People are crazy about another sport. In Brazil, it 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 well i was a boxing fan i'm less so now uh but um is my dad the greatest i don't know i mean that's a very subjective offering either way like if you think he was or wasn't but there have been great fighters 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 that 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 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 uh won oh i did what was uh 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 and 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, um, yeah, I'm okay with that. Whether how he's regarded, uh, in terms of being the greatest of being the greatest or, you know, what his shortcomings were, 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 him. I 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 respect, you just dropped respect. Do you think your dad has received the respect he deserves for what he accomplished in the ring? Like, 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, you know, fights from the past that are posted. I think people 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, 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. 15,000 people. My dad was down there with CBC to comment, do the commentating on the fight. In lieu of getting paid, he took my brother and myself and um a rabid crowd of you know crazy puerto rico is a crazy

boxing environment it's unbelievable it's there's such a rabid pro national pro puerto rican crowd it's unbelievable anyway before the fight started, my dad was announced as being there and the, the ovation they gave him was my brother and I were, 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 racing, whatever.

And then now they're writing about boxing, like, like they know something. And, you know, they always demonstrated to me for the most part, what they didn't know about fighting as opposed to what they, what they knew about fighting. So yeah, respect. I always, 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 uh national boxing hall of fame and places in california and new york state and my dad would always have lineups galore people you know glowingly you know right seeing his praises so I, 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, you know, 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, didn't know very much 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 to, for George to be, you know, a retired fighter. It was tough, but 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 exploitive 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 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 uh named to the order of canada he has good good i good i was because that to me is a slam dunk to be uh to be frank so what year do you remember are approximately what year? Oh, it's okay.

It's okay. Early, early 2007. Okay. I know he was inducted into the, the Ontario sports hall of fame in 1995. Ontario sports hall of fame, Canadian sports hall of fame, the world boxing hall of fame in Los Angeles,

the national 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. He's been recognized

multiple times. Good, good, good. Now, just to go back to the two fights against Muhammad Ali. So the first one, which was March 29th, good, good. Now, just to go back to the two fights against Muhammad 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 um well let's put that that comment by muhammad into context sure you know muhammad you know went to have so many tough fights after george right in fact too many many to the point where it hurt him, right? But 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 Fore uh kenny norton gave him tremendous trouble for three fights you know as ernie shavers he had so many tough fights later on uh like i said too many um so yeah that 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 of 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, one of the leading sports scientists and a Canadian and a Torontonian at that for those 17 days. And he always mentioned that Lloyd was instrumental in helping him get his anaerobic capacity up. And I saw my dad doing all kinds of, you know, 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 interested, 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 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 the 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, cause they put down, they put down boards over the ice. Yeah.

I remember it all of course and i remember standing up on on my seat telling the referee to get out of the way so my dad could hit him well your your dad was not knocked down of course as we discussed and oh and i and and george meted out a lot of punishment to muhammad that you know people say it was like a one one-sided affair no 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. 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, 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 he couldn't speak very well at the time he said, Mitch, 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. 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. 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 were so important and world changing. But he was also like a guy's guy who liked to tell jokes and love being around you know young people and laughing and yeah he's a wonderful guy you you mentioned uh 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 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, 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 and 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 I can say thankfully we look at the relationships differently now right so right so um yeah i guess she would yeah four days after her 16th birthday she gives birth to you mitch and then she gives birth to uh by the

time she's 20 she's got given birth to four boys now let's start if you let's talk let's talk about jesse just briefly here so so again and i'll try to keep it together while I talk about this. No, we're good. We're good. Mid-80s, 1985. He's only 20 years old, and your father discovers his body. What happened to Jesse? Well, Jesse was a heroin addict.

to jesse uh well jesse was a heroin addict um uh he my father tells the story of jesse uh tearing up his knee on a motorbike and then after the operation being put on opioids and and then after like when we were talking 1984 85 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 a troubled kid in terms of his interaction with the law. He was a troubled kid in terms of his interaction with the law. He was a very, very aggressive. If there was anyone in the family, it should have been a fighter. It should have been Jesse because he could punch 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 bit on a live cord, an open-ended cord that, you know, wasn't properly, and electrocuted, it almost killed him. And he required bouts of plastic surgery to make his his mouth functional but there was always that that obviously distinctive look to his his lip structure and people were very cruel people could be cruel you know they caught him if 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 he i always tell this to people and people don't believe him. My brother was 11 years old. He knocked cold unconscious 18 year olds who were, who were mouthing. I said, can you imagine the, the, the, the fast twitch muscle fiber explosive capability of an 11 year old knocking out 18 year olds. So he was well well known to the police because of his aggressive nature and um i i will go out publicly say the police did not treat him well i mean he came home at times 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 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 drugs smoking

marijuana and hashish right but um i i and my parents were were broken. They separated at the time because 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, he's 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. So that was, you know, I was living in Guelph at 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, that, that, that opened up a Pandora's box for other people in my family to take their own

life when the pain became way too overwhelming. And it's, 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 afterwards is 100 times the pain of what that individual is going through. But of course, you know, when you're in so much pain, you, you know, you're, 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 i think mike that's that's a great point with reference to my brother jesse because i know he felt very bad about being a heroin addict he felt shame um i didn't know this i found out about this afterwards he tried he tried to uh, to hang himself a couple months before George didn't tell anybody about that. That was problematic. Because if you know, if I'd known about that, if other people would 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 or my brother was you know 20 years old at the time but but you know um teen mental no one even discussed that right people didn't even talk about that issue and 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 uh oh you can't cut it you can't you can't cut it and therefore you you did you buried uh buried it under the the carpet and you you swept it so imagine imagine a guy who's reputed to be the toughest man in the country right 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 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 that happened to the Shavalo family was in 1985 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 like I guess when you're George Shavalo Jr. you'd go by Lee, maybe. What name did your brother prefer to be known as? Well, 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 Chivalo Jr. So, yeah, he called himself Lee Chivalo. He also called himself Lee Shepard. Shepard was my mother's maiden name. Yeah. Brother G, he did not like, I don't think he was ever fully psychologically comfortable with being George Chevalo Jr. And I don't blame him for that. 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 he was a bad alcoholic. Well, I don't know if there's ever a good alcoholic, 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 had a, 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 93, he wanted to die. He would publicly express that he wanted to die. He came out of jail.

He got a hold of 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 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. 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 extremes of the human experience um she obviously for a for a minute forgot about her own advice and uh she swallowed a whole bunch of pills that uh she'd had stored she she found them my brothers had stored um some opioids from 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 not any more in the world. And she took her and she swallowed them and went to lie down in down in the room where um my brother jesse had 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 uh as a overdose of uh on heroin it's really a suicide essentially. So, so Jesse kills himself in 1985. Georgie Lee, uh, 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, right. Prepares the suicide note and takes the 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. My brothers went to jail several times for drugstore heists because, you know, they get desperate, right? Sure. They go on that inward journey that took them away. It's addiction, right?

Yeah, it's horrible. right? They go on that inward journey that took them away. It's addiction, right? It's, yeah, yeah, it's horrible. And, and, 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, ah, listen, people experience pain in different ways. I don't blame anyone. Right. But just, you know, my overall recommendation is, you know, we, we avoid those kinds of traumas that make us do those extreme things. Right. So that, that, that's the hard part. Right. And everyone reacts differently to different things.

It's these are not easy problems to solve, right? They're difficult problems to solve. And your mom, Lynn Chiavello, 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. 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 were the only surviving boy. And we 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 downer too, because of that. So yeah, he went in 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 that tolerance.

Right. So if you go and you get a, 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, when, you know, 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. 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, you know, 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 might a pretty potent dose of heroin there 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 and avenue road in an apartment and uh 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 tough. I was in Los Angeles with my wife at the time. And I'd just gotten down there and I was meeting my in-laws for the first time. And we had a beautiful street party that night in in you know West Hollywood is a small little Latin community I remember it had 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 and I don't even know how to phrase this but is it possible there's almost like muscle memory? Like you're kind of, 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 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 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 after my brother Jesse died, I was in 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 had transpired. And that time after Jesse died really laid out a framework for me by which, you know, whenever, whenever I was challenged psychologically, you know, whenever, whenever I was challenged psychologically, I knew that I had a game plan and a place to go to that'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. Know 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. No, that's beautiful. I love to hear that as often as that teacher. Exercise is medicine. It's the best prescription. You know,

you know where your mind goes when it free, you can, you can free float, right? And not attached to anything. Or you can focus in like a laser beam, and you'll get your most creative thinking, right, all while you're more alert every cell in your body is turned on you feel alive you feel what it's a beautiful it's a beautiful way to reaffirm how beautiful it feels to be alive every day not i'm with you 100 there so hearing you you know talk it's like okay so there's some people might might hit the bottle other people's might people might you know hit the needle if you will needle and the damage done shout out to neil young and then there's others who would channel it in the way you have which would help explain why you're you're a survivor okay so by the way coincidentally i suppose the most recent guest on this program who who sat here in the studio with me is a gentleman named

a young man named derrick krist, who has been rapping under the handle Decisive for many years. And he was prescribed opiates for an injury. And very, very quickly, like just unbelievably quickly, became addicted. And he was open and honest about this

just on, I think it was Friday. Was it Friday or Thursday? I think it was Friday. He was 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 Percocet or something, ending in a heroin addiction, which is something, you know, your dad has said about the, you know, when I was with my dad the last few years, people would come up and tell their, their, their story. They would tell, or, or the story of a loved one. And what you realize is that, you know, we're, 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, 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 know, taking care of our young people so that they're not traumatized

and don't have to turn to drugs and alcohol as an escape. You know, that take, let's take care of each other. Let's take better care of each other. And, and I know that when my dad got up to speak to people, he, he, and he was very open and he could be at times very shock oriented within 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 experienced. And, and, and that was, and people, I could, I could,

I can feel that and I could see the way people would come up and, and speak so intimately and beautifully and the things they would say. I mean, I mean, after, after my mother and Georgie 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, 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, you know, 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 we so many people are are hurting out there and so many people have a great story to tell and that's what they connect that's why they connected with george right now i was going to ask you about your father

uh you know i mentioned you were a survivor you know vanessa's a survivor and george my sister my i just want to yeah please and what a strong individual she is. It wasn't easy growing up a woman in the Shavalo household. It was not. But she's a strong woman, and she's raising her kids. She does such a great job. She's a fantastic mother and a beautiful person. And she's got stories to tell, too, from a woman's perspective. Believe me. So how much how much okay 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 bookends so what's the gap there in a year difference okay so there's a little break between number four and number five i'm just uh thinking of my mom my mom my mom always said she wanted a daughter come hell or high water. She got one. Okay, good. 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 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 does your father survive this trauma in his, you know, his intimate little family? Well, I, the time after, after, you know, my dad remarried relatively shortly after my mother died right so uh i i was not happy

with that um but you know who am i to say how people survive these things i've got my my my modalities and the way i deal with things and then of course he had his too so um you know i i'd be lying if i if i was to say our relationship was good uh for maybe five or six years after my mom died um you know i was newly married and i went on to do my own thing and um but i think i think my father getting up and and you know i i think he was a he was a a friggin laser beam when it came to talking people did not talk about addiction right and when he got up this tough guy this this this much the toughest guy the toughest guy this country could produce like yeah you will 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 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 called me up. Years later, he said, you know, I just want you to know, son, that, you know, sometimes I feel like shit having to talk, 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 being opportunistic, but he was always worried about the fact as to whether or not people would see he's going to speak into people and being paid for it because he had to make a living. Sure, of course.

And being paid for it. If you know, cause 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, that was the gist of the conversation. I won't tell you the particulars, but we'd 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 with her husband, Paul Hunter, who also wrote at the Toronto Star for many, many years.

They're a lovely couple, actually. dropped by of her husband Paul Hunter who also rode at the Toronto Star for many many years they're a lovely couple actually but Mary Hornsby had covered a story for the Toronto Star before she was retired by Tourist Arm 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 in 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 very serious accusations. And there's a legal matter at play here between you and Vanessa, I suppose,

the two surviving children of George. The powers of attorney for George. The powers of attorney and, yes, right, in legal words as well. So 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 Shavallo and you and Vanessa and, 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. 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 like, have you ever seen Death of a Salesman? Oh, Lohman, yeah. 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 onto it and then sold it for another piece. Anyway, it was out at Hamilton Airport, and he made a substantial amount of money off of it. So he and his wife bought some properties. 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 rote 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, right? He would just bury his head in the sand. what are you doing about it? He would avoid it, right? Like he would just, you know, 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 wouldn't, 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 bedbugs. And that was over two years ago so so um he tried to go back into his house and he was arrested yeah 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 yes okay yeah yeah the matrimonial and he was arrested and and i couldn't like why would my father be arrested trying to get back into his home home that he had been uh kicked out of for two years. And then there was a restraining order put against him. Well, that's when I decided. And he had 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 of 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 bathe and take care of himself properly. His personal hygiene went down.

He would have moments where he was so forgetful. He wouldn't know what city he was in uh and not only that he he 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 um he started divorce proceedings uh 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 father who made over $3 million 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 are 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 had three sets of lawyers. The first two didn't work out, so she got another 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, 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, 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 an investment and the sale of one of his houses supports him being 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 and my dad's friends for something akin to like psychological trauma. But that got thrown out of court for two and a half million dollars. 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 Shabal. 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. Right. And as

much as my father and I have had difficulties over the years, I wasn't going to abandon him. I wasn't going to see a life that had both triumph and tragedy in it and tragically, you know, so 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 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 I have a, uh, I was the power of attorney for my grandmother. Uh, 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. Uh, is that where we're at with George and you? Like, will George know that you're rich? 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 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 in 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, playing the songs you loved? We play music. My nephew, Jesse, is wonderful. He brings over music and plays them a whole bunch of songs. And he seems

every once in a while to recognize a lyric but you know even that light is starting to fade right no i know i've been there with 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. But, but I mean, yeah, the, I guess the point I wanted to reiterate is that he is comfortable and safe as we speak right now. Right. He is, he is. Thank goodness.

No, that's, that is most important here. Okay. And again, I'm not, 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 your father. 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 second wife. 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 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 bar. It's no longer operational. 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. He would listen to a few songs that i get him up and he could he could sing you know elvis tunes jerry lee lewis tunes whatever the tune was he was his memory would come alive again right those memories would come alive and um you know seeing that he was born in uh that he was born at St. Joseph's Hospital, grew up on Hook Avenue, just north of Dundas, east of Keele.

Grew up later on just near Old Western Road in Davenport. That was something akin to a full circle move, like bringing him back. And then people would come into the Pegasus. Tony Seguris was the owner of the bar. I taught his younger sister, Sandy, who went on to be a world boxing champion. Hey, nice. Not because of anything I did or trained. Well, you never know.

But there's a boxing connection there, I guess. Anyway, they made things very comfortable for george there uh people who grew up in that neighborhood who who'd 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, there's that opportunity again to stir memories, right? So 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, did a fantastic job of kind of displaying the, the mood and sentiment that happened there. And it was,

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. So I was happy for that experience. Before we leave the junction here. So you're, you're okay. You're probably wondering what an FOTM is. Cause I dropped it. of toronto mike so mitch you are now an fotm so thank you 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 uh different things even great lakes brewery a sponsor of the program but many dealings with george i remember we were talking about uh different things even great lakes brewery a sponsor of the program but many dealings and back in like 2018 2019 uh i guess he was involved in the opening of the george chivalo community center all right yeah that's right exactly so i

just yeah so i just wanted to shout it it's not it's not a community center like 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, 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,

over the fence or it was where she was plucking chicken, that Royce DuPont poultry packers. Right. No, I, I know this again, I know his name as well, but you know,

there's a scene in the hurricane speaking of, you know, Toronto and boxing. Okay. Right. Where the car crash in the hurricane is that bridge where I guess Dundas and keel. And then it becomes,

I know Annette actually, it's Annette. Annette becomes DuPont at keel. I want to sayas and Kiel, and then it becomes, you know, Annette, actually it's Annette. Annette becomes DuPont at Kiel, I want to say. Right, right, right. Right. Anyway,

that bridge there is a kind of in the movie. Cause of course there's a whole bunch of Toronto stuff in that movie, but where, where the hurricane, but I digress. I just thought I'd bring up a little boxing connection to that neck of the wedge you're talking about, but amazing.

So shout out to FOTM, Joel Goldberg, who, by the way, great, great guy. Yeah. he co-founded electric circus and just the other day i spoke with um ken pompey 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 uh i'm trying to make 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, 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 typecast that way.

And what I remember from, I remember the scene, of course, where he gets his arm ripped apart. 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 a modern film and all the people behind the scenes who are doing all that. I remember my late niece, Rachelachel shivalo she was a beautiful kid uh she died at 30 of esophageal cancer and i remember um uh 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 so it was quite a scene like even before i knew that was george

chavalo you remembered that scene yeah if people look for the arm wrestling match with jeff gold bloom's character and uh a guy named marky that's yeah jeff gold bloom's eating a chocolate bar and george makes fun of that he's eating chocolate like right gets his arm ripped up is that the biggest movie your dad appeared in maybe no no well it's it's the biggest movie my dad um acted in maybe that's what i mean yes yeah but but he he was he was uh people might not know this he was in the first rocky movie and he was also in pulp fiction there are pictures of my father in both those movies like two of the most violent movies of the 20th century. Oh, because Bruce Willis' character was the boxer.

Right. He kills the guy in the ring. 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, I remember that. 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 up on the wall, George Chivala, Canadian heavyweight champion. I don't know how I missed that. That's my favorite movie of all time.

I've seen it a hundred times, including at the Cinesphere on the biggest screen, you know, the IMAX screen. Watch it again. When he goes back in, you'll see. And then, you know the imax screen watch it again when he goes back in you'll see yeah and then yeah and then um uh and rocky won the first rock which i love when he when rocky's walking adrian around uh he's walking and she's skating memory buys time from the zamboni driver to yeah on their

first date yes and then he pulls out a picture hey this is me a picture fighting so and so like it's actually uh my father fighting the italian champion dante canet and he's hitting him with a body shot and canet's feet are coming right off the ground so yeah it's so now these are fun facts because uh this isn't even on like your i couldn't find this in any bio or any wiki page or anything. Like, this is a true fun fact that I had no idea about. It's amazing. Yeah, George is immersed into the culture of, you know, violence. All right. 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 path, wherever it is, my dad's name somewhere, you know, on a bridge, like high above an intersection.

Yeah, 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 Ruddock's career. And your dad, from what I understand, your dad was, uh, uh, train training and working with Razor at the beginning of his career, especially that the big fight where he beats Mike Weaver. Yeah. Where he got his first big win. Right. Uh, uh, so, uh, my dad trained him. My dad said he was a phenomenal athlete. Um he got he was instrumental in training uh uh razor to get his first big win over um uh mike weaver yes that's yeah former and then and then 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. But my dad always said he was a phenomenal natural athlete. We had those two big tilts against Tyson that were must-see TV for me and my buddies. And Razor didn't win him, but he— No, 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 combinations and staying on the outside and using his length. And then that takes 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 turn him into a one punch guy that mule kick punch which was effective but um you know uh certainly i think he was a better conditioned athlete when he was training under my best i'll bet so mitch i gotta say i thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and i'm so appreciative you gave me all this time but i don't want you to leave if there's anything you wanted to share or bring up that you didn't get the opportunity to do so. Now, before I play a great song from a Toronto band called Lowest of the Low to play us out here, please, the microphone is open. Is there anything you'd like to share with us? Well, can I?

I don't want to end on a negative note. I've really enjoyed the conversation, Mike. It's been beautiful. And I welcome and I'm thankful for the opportunity. I just know that you had Spider Jones on a couple of weeks ago. And Spider always tells everybody that he had this deep, intimate relationship with Muhammad Ali and that he sparred with Ali. And I just want to go on record in response to that. That's totally bogus. That's an out and out lie. I'm not going to go into record in response to that that's totally bogus that's an out and out

lie I'm not going to go into great detail here because we don't have the time for that but anyone who wants to reach out to me and gets the and get the the particulars as to why that is totally I'll call it bull roar a prevarication of the highest order I'll let them know but I and what disappoints me about Spider is, you know, he was a friend of my dad's. My dad gave him a great break in the media by getting him onto his show, Famous Knockouts. Right.

And he's been abusive of that friendship by, you know, creating falsehoods. And I'm not very, I'm not very pleased about it. Right. So I don't want to go into too much detail here, but if anybody wants to reach out to me, he always threatens to sue me. Come and sue me, but he doesn't really, he's got a paralegal in a strip mall and pickering to send me some kind of threatening letter.

Hire a lawyer, Spider. I'm a big boy. Come after me. But then you'll have to prove everything you've said and i've got it all on record my good man now mitch i'm just again i don't you know i feel the same way about spiders i do about you which is that i had a great conversation so i'm not asking so here i am i will say and no i how could i ever pick a side except uh i listened back because you know you gave me a heads up on this and perhaps perhaps, in fact, it seems like in the past,

maybe Spider embellished or perhaps put a little more... Embellished is a kind word. Okay, so I would say for the purposes of, you know, this conversation, I would say I would solely judge Spider Jones on what he said to me in our 90 minutes together, which is only a couple of weeks ago. We did about 90 minutes together and I listened back and I know you listened as well.

So in his conversation with me, he really does play it down. Like he didn't say he was part of the entourage or he was like this. Yeah. Michael. Yes, I know. I know he did that,

but the only reason he's doing that is because he knows you're listening. He knows I'm listening. Michael. Yes, I know. I know he did that, but the only reason he's doing that is because he knows you're listening. He knows I'm listening. He said things like, like he believes all these, he created all these belief echoes, like he drops names and like that's supposed to somehow support his position. But he said things like you asked him if he was a three times golden gloves champion. And he says, well, you know, everything was golden gloves back then. Right And he says, well, you know, everything was golden gloves back then. Right.

Well, that's, you know, he's trying to obfuscate it, confuse, you know, that. And then he said, well, you were a sparring partner. Yeah, but I wasn't really a sparring partner. I wasn't part of his trap. Listen, at 19, he wasn't even in Toronto at that time. 1966, he was 19 years old. Why would Muhammad Ali spar with, you know, the greatest fighter in the world come and spar with a 19 year old? Impossibility. That's so much. He's also said before that it was

written up in the papers. And I've asked him for proof of that. He can't prove that. I have him actually saying that. So listen, listen, Spider is the king of embellishment. We'll call it that. All I ask is, you know, that's a sacred memory for me. My dad's fight with Muhammad Ali and its place in Canadian sports history. And no matter, you're not riding on the coattails of that one, my good friend. So Mitch, my friend, I think when,

and it was only maybe yesterday that Spy, I did a tweet to say, you know, my next guest on Toronto Mic is Mitch Chiavello. And, you know, once you tweet, the world is aware. So I was hearing from lots of people who had memories of your dad and excited to hear this, you know, and pointing me to different things. And I got a phone call last night from, you know, Spider Jones. So, you know, I'm sorry. I can only say it in one way when I can't say it.

So I got a phone call from Spider yesterday, and he was rather concerned that you would. Of course he is. Right. He makes a living of telling people that he's done this, right? You know, he's got a foundation. He has a foundation where he goes around, believe to achieve. And he said to me, you're preventing me like helping young people. he said to me you're you're preventing me like helping young people and my response to that will always be young people regardless of who they are are always deserving of the truth is any of this

uh and i know how freaking honest you are so i know you're going to tell me the truth here but is any of this uh you know spider versus mitch i won't know what else to call it but is any of it because uh spider is on joanne's side with regards to some of these lawsuits that we talked about, between you and your sister and the current wife of your father? He may have sided with Joanne, thinking that George was better off with Joanne, and then you were, as power of attorney, trying to get the divorce. Spider would know nothing of the situation.

The only time you'd ever see Spider would be where he had an opportunity to self-promote. Right? Right. Which, you never saw Spider anywhere else unless he was at a function where he was self-promoting. Then we'll leave it with this again. Here I am, peacekeeper. You know, that's Mitch. I'm the peacekeeper.

No, no, no. I hear you. Let's leave it with this. Regardless of whether there was any embellishment or, you know, you don't want to let the, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. You know that, but outside of that, can we concur here now before I play the extra music that spider Jones

isn't trying to hurt anybody like spider is trying to help people in the world. I feel like, like and again i don't know them as well as others but it feels to me like at the core spider is a good guy trying to do good things for people am i am i what do you say to that well well well well how best to put this there is no act that anyone performs in the world that is not an act of self-interest, perhaps. And I think he's just taken a little too far. Now, if Muhammad was around, it's amazing. My dad's in cognitive decline, and Muhammad's dead, and Angelo Dundee is dead. But I'll tell you who's not dead. Khalilah Ali is dead, is not dead, Muhammad's wife at that time. And the people, Amherstburg, Ontario,

is a little community outside of Windsor. And they have something called the Amherstburg Freedom Museum that talks about Black culture in Canada and the Underground Railroad. They once had Spider as a member of that museum. But people down there referenced, you know, what the bogus lies that he'd been promoting, and he was taken out of it. So he might be doing good things, or be trying to do

good things. That's wonderful. But again, you know, prevarication and lying and trying to build a reputation on my father. There's only one person who fought Muhammad Ali, and that was my dad. I take that back. There's a guy called Trey Travis who got up for a couple rounds and sparred also at Sully's Gym. Spider was not even in Toronto at that time. So I have a certain kind of idealistic view

of my dad and that experience and the way it shaped everything that transpired in my dad in our family. And I just, I cannot let it go without commenting on it. experience and the way it shaped everything that transpired in my dad in our family and um uh i i just i cannot let it go without commenting on it i i don't feel good about it you know because i did consider one time spider to be um if not a good friend at least friends of the family absolutely and and and this uh this creates a um an uncomfortable scenario for all involved. Well, the nice thing about my conversation with Spider is that I recorded every second of it.

And anyone right now who wants to go back and hear exactly what did Spider Jones say to Toronto Mike about Muhammad Ali, it's all there. I didn't edit a stitch. And I, because I am still, again, on the final words here is that I feel like he did tone down his involvement in that camp and in that experience. Maybe because he knew you were listening, but regardless, I think he is trying to clean that up.

And I do think Spider is trying to help people in this world and do good. And I have a soft spot for Spider, but Mitch, I also have a soft spot for you. Thank you. And again, your dad is a Canadian also have a soft spot for you. Thank you. And again, your dad is a Canadian hero and a survivor and a fighter. And, uh, thank you for sharing those stories about your dad with us today.

Mike, wonderful to talk to you. I appreciate the opportunity. And that, that brings us to the end of our 1035th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mitch, if somebody wanted to follow you anywhere,

is there anywhere they could go? No. Well, that's because you're a teacher, right? It's probably better. Yeah, I got to be careful what I do. Oh, I know teachers. They're like, no, it's not worth the hassle. I'm not on Facebook.

I'm not on Twitter. Mike, I'll be retired soon, and then I'll open up all those avenues. Okay. Well, hit me on, man. Maybe you got to get your own podcast when you retire. That'd be nice. I'll have you on, first guest. Oh, I'd love it. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana, they're at Canna Cabana. They're at canna cabana underscore See you all next week. It's been eight years of laughter

and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you But I'm a much better man