No, I won't referee for the show. I'll fight! (Douglas Cavanaugh)

Frank Klaus vs Harry Greb. An exhibition of an old legend vs the current one.

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Thought some of you would be interested in this.
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@The Undefeated Lachbuster you are a big Klaus appreciator right?

 

For an easier read:


“No, I won’t referee for the show; I’ll fight. Why shouldn’t I? I’m in the best of shape and feel as good as I did when I was champion.

Is Greb on the card? Have you got anybody to box him? If not, let me go on with him. And listen, don’t put any ‘cushions’ on my hands for the fight. Give me the regulation five-ounce gloves, so I can sting that guy when I hit him.

We’re good friends and all that, but I just want to see how it is nobody seems to hurt Greb. I’ll bet I could make him go some when I was champion, and I know I can do it now. I’m serious. What do you say?” –Frank Klaus

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FRANK KLAUS retired in 1913, the same year HARRY GREB turned professional. As time went by the former middleweight champion watched the progress of the future middleweight champion with great interest, apparently liking what he saw in spite of their stylistic differences. Frank liked Harry’s aggression and rugged disregard for return fire; it reminded him of his own youthful determinations. If he had one criticism it was that Greb didn’t sit on his punches, sacrificing power for volume punching. Klaus would rather he dig in a bit harder, but the Garfield boy, who relied on instinct over the mental game of boxing, knew what he was doing when he made his choices.

To him the best way to have a long and lucrative career was to keep his fists from breaking and get hit in return as little as possible. Like Klaus, he had an iron mandible and could absorb power shots without so much as flinching. But it served Harry’s long-range plans to keep moving in there, which lessened his punching power but provided opponents with no target to strike out at either. He fought like a tornado and, as one scribe put it, “a tornado has no resting spot”.
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In early 1918 Klaus was asked to be a special guest referee in a boxing benefit to raise money for tobacco for our servicemen overseas. Being a patriotic American, Frank agreed. But after further consideration decided that the cause would be better served if he were an active participant in the fighting itself. His decision may have had a bit of fighter’s pride at its core as well, Klaus still being young and strong enough to go a few fast rounds in the ring with anyone.

When he heard that Harry Greb was on the bill, he asked for him without hesitation. Having the city’s former and current middleweight heroes facing off caused quite a stir and put a lot of backsides in seats, despite it only being billed as an “exhibition” of three, two-minute rounds. This was Klaus and Greb; two all-action fighters of the first order. It was bound to be an exciting competition.
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The event took place on February 7 at the Power House Arena in Lawrenceville. As expected, “The Pittsburgh Bearcat” barreled into “The Pittsburgh Windmill” from the first tap, Frank thumping hard to the body and Harry answering with his bounding, hundred-punches-a-minute attack. The newspapers reported a “fast and furious” contest and that the decision went to Greb. But all agreed that Klaus showed flashes of his old time form and made a good showing for having been out of the ring for half a decade.

Afterward the gloves used by both combatants were auctioned off for $25. Heaven only knows what those gloves would fetch today. If anybody can locate them it would be quite a find. Check those attics and cellars, Pittsburgh!!
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--Douglas Cavanaugh