Joe Frazier KOs George Chuvalo This Day July 19, 1967 (This Day In Boxing History)

Joe Frazier 205 lbs beat George Chuvalo 217 lbs by TKO at 0:16 in round 4 of 10
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York, New York, USA

Frazier opened a cut under Chuvalo’s right eye. Mark Kram of Sports Illustrated reported: “The cut was shaped like a scimitar and it went to the bone (later it was discovered that the bone was broken, requiring surgery), and the eye, seemingly ready to burst, was just a slit. There was another cut on the outside of his left eye and a gash on the top of his scalp.”

Mark Kram further reported: “The fight was supposed to be a war, but it never had time to develop. Chuvalo’s face was smeared with blood as hook after hook banged into the right side of his rocklike head by the second round. Between the second and third rounds, the face turned purple. The third was Chuvalo’s best round, but still, he did not win it. … Chuvalo’s right eye was closed when he came out for the fourth and, as he said later, he was dizzy. Two heavy hooks by Frazier ended the fight after 16 seconds, Chuvalo turning his back on Frazier and groping for his corner. A blood vessel leading to his eyelid had erupted. ‘I thought my eyeball had been knocked out.’ said Chuvalo.”

Chuvalo later said his right eye was injured when he fought Archie Ray on June 22, 1967. Chuvalo said Ray’s head accidentally collided with his cheek bone. “My eye was swelling up, and I went back into the gym and started sparring too soon, and my eye kept blowing up in the gym,” Chuvalo explained. “So when I fought Joe, I was damaged goods.”