BoxRec

He was a stablemate of mine at Singer's Gym in Buffalo, NY where we were both trained/managed by Johnny Sudac. And we were both from Lockport about 20 miles north of Buffalo.
Pat was a very good amateur who won several western New York Golden Gloves & regional AAU tournaments before joining the US Navy in the early '70s where he went on to win the All-Navy title at 179 lbs.
After his discharge from the navy, he turned pro in 1975 defeating future #1 middleweight contender & two-time title challenger Mustafa Hamsho in his pro debut. After which Pat went 13-0 beating fighters ranked in THE RING magazine's United States rankings in Luis Rodriguez, Gary Alexander & Freddie Brown before being stopped by future cruiserweight contender Ivy Brown.
Pat rebounded with a W10 over the slick Bernard McLean before being matched with his across the border rival in Canadian & Commonwealth Lightheavyweight champion Gary Summerhays in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario where he lost a hotly contested, controversial split decision over ten rounds. After which Cuillo rebounded with three KO wins in two months, one over the rugged Karl Zurheide & tough heavyweight Grady Daniels.
This lead to Pat facing his toughest test to date in future World Lightheavyweight Champion Eddie Gregory who was probably the hardest puncher in the division at that time, but who never came close to dropping or stopping him that night in Madison Square Garden.
After that decisive L10 however, Pat became somewhat discouraged by his boxing career & was inactive for over a year.
After which, he was offered a fight in Milan, Italy on short notice against longtime middleweight & light heavy contender Tony Mundine. A fight for which Pat was able to train for just three days before flying out for the quick payday. Not surprisingly, he ran out of gas after a couple of competitive rounds & embarrassed by his own lack of conditioning he walked out of the ring after the fifth round leading to a DQ loss.
Pat briefly retired but after some trouble with the law in Lockport, he resurfaced in Florida under Angelo Dundee who insisted that he could make Cuillo a world champion. But, their relationship only lasted for a single fight a ten round decision over cruiserweight contender Tony Severance for the Florida State title before the long arm of the law caught up with him forcing him to flee the sunshine state for New Jersey, which had become a hotbed of boxing.
In order to escape attention, Pat decided to fight under the new ring moniker of Vic Valentino.
With Carmine Graziano managing him & Don Elbaum promoting him Pat found some success as Valentino.Beating hard hitting heavyweight Terry Mims over ten tough rounds before losing in bizarre fashion to longtime contender Richie Kates just a month later.
Pat had been out walking on the boardwalk with his good friend & fellow fighter "Irish" Teddy Mann the night before the Kates fight when they ran into some trouble in the form of a group of local thugs who instigated a brawl with Cuillo & Mann during which Pat knocked out the biggest of them with a right hand, sending the rest of them fleeing into the night.
After which, they noticed that Pat's hand was bleeding profusely. When they got back to Pat's room at the Tropicana they saw that one of the thug's teeth was embedded between the first & second knuckle of his right hand. Mann wanted Pat to go to the hospital to have the tooth removed & the cut stitched up but knowing that if he did so that the fight the following night would be canceled he decided to take care of it himself.
So, using a pair of tweezers he pulled the tooth out & then proceeded to stitch his hand up with regular black thread. Which might have been fine had he not been using his right hand the next night to punch Kates in the face.
So, sometime around the end of the fourth round, Pat began to land heavily on Kates leaving him a bloody mess. But, when the referee brought in the ringside physician to inspect Kates cut they saw that there was no cut. So, assuming that the blood was coming from Kate's nose the ref allowed the bout to continue.
But, in the fifth round, more blood appeared & Kates looked a gory mess, so they ref again inspected him & saw no damage that could explain the excessive amount of blood present until he looked across at Pat who was standing in the neutral corner with blood pouring out of his glove. Under the circumstances, the ref had no choice but to call the fight in favor of Kates because he couldn't let Pat continue to lose that much blood no matter where the cut was located. So, it went into the record books as a KO by 5.
But, pat returned to headline at the Trop again, this time meeting 23-2 heavyweight fringe contender Steve Zuoski whom he beat over ten rounds. Which lead to the biggest win of Cuillo's career when he beat heavyweight contender Jimmy Young over 10 rounds earning Pat a world ranking in both the heavyweight & cruiserweight classes.
There was talk about the potential for him to face the new cruiserweight world champion ST Gordon, but unfortunately, a controversial split decision loss to top 20 heavy Walter Santemore ( who was coming off of a decisive victory over the still dangerous Earnie Shavers ) put a halt to those talks. That loss was followed by three successive victories & a rather ill-advised return to the light heavyweight division which allowed him to win the Florida State Light heavyweight title from Leon "Nightlife" McDonald, but which left him weakened against the talented Junior Edmonds to whom he lost over ten rounds.
That was followed by two decision losses to two more future & past world titlists in Ricky Parkey & Dwight Muhammad Qawi. Ending his career at a somewhat misleading mark of 24-9 ( 15 KOs ).

Great synopsis of his career and an interesting read. Thank you. Always wondered what was behind the alias.

Thanks much Dart. Are you from the area?
I neglected to mention that while he was in New Jersey he got mixed up with the wrong crowd & the wrong things & was found dead in his apartment in April 1986. They said it was his heart, but it was actually cocaine that caused it.
"Buck" ( his nickname outside the ring to his family & friends ) was definitely a bit of a wild man outside the ring & might have been the closest thing to the notorious "Guv'nor" Lenny Mclean that we had on this side of the Atlantic. Because, as good as he was in the ring ( & he could have been so much better as that quote from Angelo Dundee was 100% on the level, I had a long chat with him about Cuillo back in '85 ), he was an even better brawler outside of it. I personally had to help pull him off of a pair of big marines that pissed him off at the NYS Golden Gloves in Niagara Falls back in 1979.
His toughness & temper definitely ran in the family as his father was the leader of the local chapter of the Kingsmen MC in Lockport. And his brothers were all tough, rugged guys as well.
One of the things that would up taking its toll on his boxing career was that he often had issues with his right hand. He was a hell of a good puncher, but he broke it one too many times outside of the ring & it didn't heal properly. So, although he was a tremendously strong guy for his size ( as evidenced by how many full sized heavyweights he beat ) he couldn't use his right to its full potential for fear of it breaking on him mid-fight ( which actually did happen to him during the Gary Summerhays right in which he had him hurt, but couldn't finish him because he'd broken his hand ).

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I met him just before his Milan fight was a great friend miss him

Pat was my best friend and you have definitely brought back some found and not so found memories , we walked into a gym at age 12 one summer day
and from that day on he was obsessed with the sport, seen all his fights except the one in italy,and i begged him to pass on that one but they offered him alot of money and he was desperate , he was as loyal as they come, and tough is a understatement, he made some poor decisions for sure that robbed him of his full potential, i was with him one day 1975/76 not sure of the year phone rang , angelo dundee made him a sweet offer,
turned it down , was working for GM and had a new born , it seemed to go down hill from then on , well i have so many memories that i could go on for days
thanks for keeping his memories alive
Pooley

Pooley, I vaguely remember you from around Lockport, my friend. I believe we even had a long talk about him one night a couple of years after he passed at the old Friar & Thief ( or it may have been called The Vault by then ).
Anyhow, it would be great to learn some more backstory on him so that I could do an in-depth article about him sometime soon.
I have my own memories about him, of course, but those don't begin until I began training at Singer's Gym myself in 1978. At the time he's just lost the split decision to Gary Summerhays in Canada. So, it would be great to learn more about his amateur career & early pro career from you. I talked to Pat a lot in the gym but I was just a kid at the time & can't remember a lot of our conversations.
I followed in his footsteps though with my own career in the ring. I had 27 amateur fights & two pro fights.

Would be glad to share as much as my memory will allow just watched his 1st pro fight again he was so talented and could have gone a lot farther without the distractions
Email me and we can share memories
[email protected]

Cool. I'll definitely get back to you soon via email.
Jim Allcorn

Frankly, I only remembered the guy as a name who beat Jimmy Young. I looked up his record and it was quite interesting. Of his 9 losses I had heard of 8 of them.

Boxing fans like to talk about ATG lists and all that, but its guys like Pat Cuillo who are the bread and butter of the sport. If you asked me 20 years ago I probably would have thought they were 2 different guys though.

Yep, Pat was a true solid journeyman pro who only lost to other top-flight pros. He was always rated just outside the top ten.
And he took on all comers from three weight classes even though he was a natural light-heavyweight. He fought light-heavies, cruiserweights & heavyweights just to stay busy & earn a living.

Yep, Pat was a true solid journeyman pro who only lost to other top-flight pros. He was always rated just outside the top ten.
And he took on all comers from three weight classes even though he was a natural light-heavyweight. He fought light-heavies, cruiserweights & heavyweights just to stay busy & earn a living.

Yep, Pat was a true solid journeyman pro who only lost to other top-flight pros. He was always rated just outside the top ten.
And he took on all comers from three weight classes even though he was a natural light-heavyweight. He fought light-heavies, cruiserweights & heavyweights just to stay busy & earn a living.