Salt Lake Tribune | 1916-12-24 | Page 24 | World Champ Had a Very Narrow Escape

i F1 RANK BARRIEAU, Ca-nadian Ca-nadian welter champion, who meets Kid Irish in Manhattan Man-hattan headliner tomorrow night. w - - X 1 i Hoi ' f 1 5 WORLD CHIP HI VERY NARROW ESCAPE Ad Wolgast Lost Head and Also Knocked Out by Youngster. Boxing followers carae near getting the jolt or their lives and a new light-; weight champion on the night of Oc- j tober 25, 1912, when Quincy, 111., as the source of the eruption, according to a piece of ancient history which has just come to light. Ad "Wolgast, the bearcat of Ca-diLbic, Mich., ana then the king bee in the lightweight ranks, was the champion wno came 60 close to losing his crown. : It was only a short time after his ! operation for appendicitis, and Wol- J gast was picking supposedly easy ones; lor his try outs before meeting Willie : Ritchie in' tho bout which wrested the! title from him. To begin a little bit earlier, after the; four-round bout on the coast in which Ritchie poked the champion so vigor- ously in the face as to make him the; logical contender for the crown, Wol-1 gast was making his way east for some; other short-round encounters. As a mark of gratitude toward a St. Joseph (Mo.) man, Bert Kspey, who had staked! him in tho days when he was a pre- j liminarv fighter, Wolpast stopped over ' in St. Joseph for an exhibition bout. It : was left up to the local sports to pick j his opponent and tbev chose one Fred- ! die Daniels, who had been making a good showing. In the record books you will find ' Wolgast credited with a victory over! Daniels. In reality, it was stipulated ! that there was to be only a boxing : match with two-minute rounds and that 1 both men were to pull their punches, lest Wolgast 's already battered countenance coun-tenance should be further mutilated. The public so understood it and so did Daniels. As a result, the pair put on a rapid tapping contest, in which the local youngster was not worsted to any consider able extent. The match between Wolgast and Daniels Dan-iels at Quincy followed. Wolgast was out for blood that night. Daniels saw a chance to win fame and glory for himself, and with the articles calling for a no-decision six-round affair, went in to gt a knockout if possible. He gut his chance near tho end of the fight. He had been recalling to Wolgast that back in the champion 's pork-aml-benn days he and Daniels had often boxed toircrher while training. "Do vou remember that dav T knocked you down and you wouldn't box with me any more?" asked Daniels, Dan-iels, as he lot "drive with hia right. Now, it is not on record that he nad ever done that, but it made Wolgast mad. Daniels noticed it and he kept on repeating his inquiry at every chance. It had the desired effect at last, and Wolgast lost his head momentarily. momen-tarily. Ho came bolting in like a streak of lightning and wide open. Daniels Dan-iels swung witli his right and it connected con-nected flush with the champion's jaw. Wolgast staggered back, badly befuddled. befud-dled. The crown lay within the grasp of Daniels, but his second, who had been looking somewhere else when the blow landed, believed that Wolgast was merely stalling. "liecp away, keep away," he shrieked above the pandemonium. 'Ad is just trying to draw you on. Keep away." Daniels, taught to obey, backed away for a moment, then realizing that he was unwise, shot back to finish what he had started. But he was too late. Wolgast, Wol-gast, badly dazed, still knew enough to clinch and he did it for the rest, of the round. Thus opportunity knocked at the door of a virtual unknown and he did not open it. Wolgast, after the fight, admitted he did not know just what did happen after that blow. "He had me dead to rights if he had just followed it up," he said. Perhaps that crack on the jaw was one reason .why Daniels never got a chance to try it again.