How Muhammad Ali Shaped Canadian Boxing

Boxing historian and actor Lou Eisen was 13 the first time he met Muhammad Ali. It was backstage at a fight between Jose Napoles and Clyde Gray in the famed Maple Leafs Gardens. He had already been a fan of Ali for years, despite his young age, becoming fascinated with the charismatic Ali in the mid 1960s.

After the fights had concluded, Eisen's dad took him to the dressing rooms to meet the fighters. It was there that he first laid eyes on Ali.

"When I got to meet Muhammad, I was already boxing. I thought I was pretty tough," Eisen told VICE Sports. "The moment I saw him I started to cry. Angelo Dundee (Ali's trainer) turned to me and said, 'It's alright, son. He has that effect on everyone.'"

On June 3, 2016, the world lost its most beloved athlete and one of the recognizable faces of the 20th century. After a lengthy battle with Parkinson's Disease, Muhammad Ali succumbed to septic shock in an Arizona hospital with his family by his side.

"I just never thought we'd speak about him in the past tense, I'm still in disbelief," Eisen said.

Tributes to the legendary Ali have poured in from across the world since news of his passing was made public. Dignitaries, celebrities, and former opponents have taken to social media to send their condolences. It's been no different in Canada, where Ali's influence was heavily felt, both during his career and after it.

Ali's impact on Canadian boxing is most noticeable for his fights against Toronto's George Chuvalo, who went the distance with Ali on two separate occasions, once on March 29, 1966 in Toronto, and again six years later in Vancouver.

Press in both the United States and Canada predicted that Ali would finish Chuvalo in relatively easy fashion, but the iron-chinned Canadian refused to go away.

"Why should this guy be such an overwhelming favourite to knock me out in a couple of rounds?" Chuvalo asked defiantly in an interview for The Last Round, a documentary on the Ali-Chuvalo fight. "I had never been knocked out before, I had a chin and thought I was a pretty rough customer. For people to think he was going to walk all over me was pretty unsound judgment."

The fights were one-sided, with Chuvalo taking the brunt of the punishment. Chuvalo, however, wasn't without his moments. The plodding Canadian avoided taking many power punches, but used his straight-forward movement to keep Ali on his toes. Not a lot of damaging blows were thrown, but Ali's speed was the difference in the end.

"I had never been in there with a guy that quick," Chuvalo said. "It's one thing to expect it, but it's another to see it, feel it and live it."

The fight turned Chuvalo from a Toronto star to a national superstar. Even in defeat, fans became aware that the Canadian fighter was never going to back down.

"The Ali fight made George Chuvalo," Eisen said. "Ali has billions of fans, most of those people have heard of Chuvalo. People can say [Wayne] Gretzky is Canada's most famous athlete, but all these fans around the world have heard of Chuvalo because of those fights."

One of those kids who looked up to Ali and Chuvalo was Tony Luis, a Cornwall, Ontario, boxer. Now a world title contender in the lightweight division, Luis also recognizes how important those fights were to reigniting the Canadian fight scene.

"Ali was a cash cow, he was a superstar of his generation," Luis told VICE Sports. "That's not to discredit Chuvalo, he fought Joe Frazier and George Foreman, but because of Ali's star power he wouldn't be as recognized today as he is without those fights against Ali."

While Ali only fought in Canada twice, he was never shy about his fondness for the country.

"The people here in Canada are nice," Ali once said in an interview. "I've never been treated so nice in my life. Everybody is as nice as they can be and this is a lot different from where I come from."

Because of the bouts against Ali, Chuvalo became a national icon in Canada. His popularity ignited a firestorm of young men from across the country to take up boxing, including a plethora of boxers from Ontario and Quebec that gained notoriety in the 1980s, including Nicky Furlano, Eddie Melo, the Hilton brothers and former heavyweight world champion Lennox Lewis.

Without Ali, the vibrant Canadian boxing scene we have today doesn't exist.

"Boxing was basically dead in Canada until Chuvalo came along and fought Ali," Eisen said. "He had a good career but it was the fight with Ali that got the entire country watching boxing again."

Chuvalo wasn't the only Canadian fighter to make a name off of fighting Ali. Jamaican-born, Canadian-raised Trevor Berbick has the distinction of being Ali's last professional fight, which Berbick won in a 10-round decision. While everyone knew that Ali was a shell of himself by their 1981 bout, Berbick was able to fight into the early 2000s off the fame he gained.

It's been 35 years since Ali's last professional boxing bout, but his contributions to Canadian boxing are still being felt today.

In Quebec, fighters like Jean Pascal have followed in Ali's footsteps with his antics. At the weigh-ins for his 2014 bout against Lucian Bute, Pascal taped his mouth shut, much like Ali was known to do. Pascal's outspoken, brash personality isn't unlike that of a young Ali.

"This is a man who always fought his beliefs, values and truth," Pascal said of Ali to La Presse on June 4 in a translated interview. "Comparing me to a little Muhammad Ali in this regard, since both the ring and out, I am fighting for the truth, for my beliefs and values."

Luis referred to Ali as his "childhood hero" and said that he got into boxing by watching tapes of Ali from his father's video collection.

"I've been blessed to meet a lot of big names over the years, but never got to meet Ali," Luis said. "It's like a kid going to Disneyland and getting to meet every character except for Mickey, that's what I compare it to."

Without Ali, Canada's vibrant boxing scene wouldn't be what it is today. All the young men who grew up scouring the libraries for magazines and videos of 'The Greatest' would have turned to hockey or football or whatever else caught their eye.

Instead, they looked at a brash American champion that took on all comers, including Chuvalo, and saw something to aspire to.