BoxRec

Vic Patrick (Victor Patrick Lucca)

ID# 026390 

Pro Boxing & Referee

CHAMPION , Hall of Fame inductee, Order of Australia...and my Great Uncle.

Gone but not forgotton.


Any information would be appreciated for family history.

Thank you

Certainly not forgotten. One of our all time greats!

Patrick had an awkward style. Had a sharp persistent jab that he used to set up his thunderous left hand. Arguably our greatest LW ever.

What kind of information were you after?


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PATRICK AGREES WITH
DAWSON... Our Boxers Lacking In Ríngecraft




AUSTRALIAN boxers have forgotten the tremendous value of ringcraft.
That's what Freddie Dawson meant last week when he said that the majority of Australian fighters were right hand crazy. Dawson has not missed a trick in summing up what is wrong with Australian boxing.
He is right in everything he says about the Australian method of fighting and training. Definitely Australian fighters are right hand crazy.
All they want to do is to throw the right hand over and end the fight.
They don't seem to get the idea that before a fighter can effectively throw the damaging right he has to get his opponent set to receive it. All that takes ring craft. You just can't walk up to a good class fighter and knock him down. Nine times out of ten the fighter that goes in for the "kill" without any premeditated campaign will find himself on the receiving end.
Most of the fighters in Australia seem to miss out on the essentials of the boxing game.The excuse is lack of experience.


When they bump into a boxer who knows how to use his hands well and thoroughly and they get a beating they claim that they "haven't been around." I would say that most of our preliminary boys step into the fight ring with a very scanty knowledge of the basic principles of boxing.
Since I have been refereeing fights I have been astounded how few boxers in Australia know how to get their balance to place punches. People are under the belief that boxers are born.


Certainly good fighters have come into the game with a certain amount of natural ability, but they would have got nowhere without having been taught the basic principles of boxing and a sound method of conditioning.
The natural fighter has a punch, but he must be shown how and when to use it.It's the same in every sport, the beginner always wants to start the wrong way.The art of boxing seemed to have disappeared from the game in Australia when Jack Carroll retired.
Carroll was probably the best boxer Australia had from the time when the great Albert Griffo dazzled the world.Carroll was like a will-o'-the wisp.
The first time I saw him fight he seemed to me to be all arms and legs.
He made use of the ring and threw punches like greased lightning. And he was a hard man to hit.


I was never a boxer. Maybe I wasn't a good example to the young boxer in Australia.I won most of my fights the easiest way the knockout. The quicker the better. But I had studied balance and I knew the right time to rip over the left. I was, of course, a southpaw.
Before I ever thought of entering the fight game I knew how to use the gloves and place a few punches.I used to go along to Ern McQuillan's gymnasium and pay two shillings a week to be shown how to use the gloves.


I suppose the fight game had a fascination for me. I used to read all the fight reports in the newspapers, go to the Stadium when I had enough money to pay my way into the bleachers, and read every book that had anything about fight that I could lay my hands on.


I was naturally a hard puncher. Whenever I got the chance I was in the ring at McQuillan's gymnasium, sparring.
Soon I wanted a real fight. Thought I would go all rights
It came along, and I knocked out Les Shocker in three rounds at Carlton Stadium in a four round preliminary. I won seven fights in a row with knockouts, and knew that I could really punch. But very often in my career I was glad that I had learned the basic principles of boxing and knew how to protect myself, and was able to stop punches from landing.
When I began to meet fighters who knew something about the game I soon found out that a punch to the chin wasn't everything about winning a fight.



They called me one of the greatest punchers Australia had produced.
But by that time I knew that hard punching was a waste of time if it wasn't planned beforehand.
Most of our boys just want to throw punches and see their opponent battered down in double quick-time. What they forget is that while they are walking up throwing punches a good, cool boxer can pick them off and wait for the right time to make his return. Dawson was an object lesson to Australian boxers. There was the ideal boxer fighter. He beat Jack Hassen, Norm Gent, and Jean Mougin all the same way.


He boxed each of them into a position when he could just go ahead and deliver the knockout punch without any fear of it missing out. And what is more, he didn't get hurt doing it.
Dawson showed the benefit of having started at the bottom of the rung by learning the basic principles of boxing and building around it a solid knowledge of ringcraft on his wayup.
In Dawson, young Australian boxers saw the polished boxer fighter with a scheming fighting brain.


Harry Rudolph, manager of Freddie Dawson and Johnny Toth, who is looking after Henry Brimm, places considerable value on roadwork. I didn't do any roadwork because I didn't like it. Roadwork might have done me a lot of good. I don't know. I made up for it with plenty of skipping and shadow sparring. I was able to pace it with anybody I met.


But if trainers like Harry Rudolph and Johnny Toth place so much faith in roadwork, they must know what they are talking about.
I advise young boxers in Australia to accept any advice handed out to them from Rudolph or Toth.
I also agree with Harry Rudolph that the small windbag does a lot to speed up punches. Vital Assets. Condition and speed are the two vital assets of the boxer.


Most of Australian boxers train hard. Some train too hard and leave a lot of it in the gymnasium when they step into the ring for the fight.
Punching the small windbag, skipping, shadow sparring, and fast sparring partners will get a boxer into condition. This method of training will keep him working hard and fast and not prove a heavy drag that will burn up his energy. A lot of Australian boxers spar too hard. They make a gymnasium spar almost a fight. A spar in a gymnasium should be a battle of wits to sharpen the eye and speed up the punches.The fighter receives enough hard punches in the actual fight.


I used to punch the heavy bag until 1 found out it wasn't doing me any good. I switched to a swivel bag suspended from the ceiling of the gymnasium and attached to the floor. The bag weighed about 151b. It was fast and I had to move fast.


I do not agree that Australian boxing is In the doldrums. The topline fighters in each division in Australia are good fighters. But I do agree with Harry Rudolph that there are not enough good fighters in each
division.We want more fighters from America, England, and Europe to give our boys experience. American fighters on the rise can gain world recognition by coming to Australia and earn more money than they can in their own country.