Yorgey finds home at Southside

By Joe Scalzo

YOUNGSTOWN — Light middleweight boxer Harry Joe Yorgey is a blue-collar, no-nonsense type of guy, so when he was looking for a new trainer a few months ago, he didn’t want someone who would tell him he was great.

He needed someone to help him become great.

Enter Jack Loew.

“I don’t want these guys who are like, ‘Hey, you’re the champ right now,’” said Yorgey, a Bridgeport, Pa., native who has trained with Loew the last two months at the Southside Boxing Club. “I want a guy who’s going to push me.

“That’s something Jack does.”

Case in point: A few weeks ago, Yorgey — who’s earned the reputation, and the physique, of a gym rat — had an off day.

“At the end of the day, I said, ‘Jack, I felt like crap,’” said Yorgey. “He said, ‘Yeah, you looked like crap.’

“That’s what I was looking for in a trainer.”

And that’s what Loew was looking for in a fighter.

Over the past 21‚Ñ2 years, Loew has upgraded from his longtime role as a hard-nosed boxing trainer with a promising middleweight named Kelly Pavlik and a gym the size of a Manhattan studio apartment.

Since Pavlik won the title two years ago, Loew’s rise has coincided with his fighter’s, bringing fame (Loew was named 2007’s Trainer of the Year by several publications), money (not millions, but certainly hundreds of thousands) and a new gym (the new place on Market Street is 4,000 square feet, or about five times the size of the old gym).

What it hasn’t brought — until now — is a championship-level fighter. That changed when Loew’s son, John, met Yorgey at a Cory Spinks fight in St. Louis last April. The two exchanged pleasantries, then exchanged numbers, and when word got out that Yorgey was looking to change handlers, Jack gave him a call.

“He said, ‘I’m going to fly you up. If we work together, we do. If we don’t, we don’t. No hard feelings,’” Yorgey, 31, recalled. “The minute I met Jack, I knew I was coming here.

“My decision was right. He’s exactly what I thought he’d be.”

Yorgey (22-0-1, 10 KOs) is the No. 4-ranked contender by the WBC and No. 5 by the WBO. (He’s ranked in the top 12 by the other two sanctioning bodies, the WBA and the IBF.) He’s coming off an impressive knockout victory in March over previously unbeaten Ronald Hearns, who is Thomas Hearns’ son.

On Saturday, Yorgey will meet Alfredo Angulo (16-1, 13 KOs) for the vacant WBO Inter-Continental light middleweight title in Hartford, Conn., on HBO. It’s a dangerous bout — Angulo has good power — but if Yorgey wins, he’ll likely get a shot at one of the four major belts.

“Listen, I know what we’re up against,” said Loew. “The telling point of the fight is going to be what happens when we get touched on our chin. I think if we get by this kid’s supposedly great power, Harry wins this fight hands down.”

Unlike many of Loew’s fighters — including Pavlik — Yorgey is better known as a boxer than a banger. It’s a style he shares with fellow Philadelphian Bernard Hopkins — Bridgeport is about 18 miles north of Philly and Yorgey said Youngstown reminds him of his hometown, only bigger — and Yorgey prides himself on embarrassing a fighter for 12 rounds rather than knocking him out in two.

“He’s not my typical white boy,” laughed Loew, whose gym has just about every demographic from the city. “But one thing I’ve learned through 20-some years of training fighters is, You take what you have and you work with it.”

Although his style is more like Hopkins, Yorgey’s demeanor leans more toward Pavlik. He’s friendly and outgoing but speaks like a kid from the city. His Philly accent comes through at times — he says “wadder” rather than water and “tawk” rather than talk — and, like Pavlik, he’s spent his life hearing backhanded compliments like, “You can fight ... for a white guy.”

“I always cheered for Kelly,” said Yorgey. “It’s kind of ironic that I’m here.”

Although Yorgey enters Saturday’s bout as the underdog, Loew, typically, has confidence in his fighter.

“Believe me, I’ve been in this position before — Pavlik against [Edison] Miranda, Pavlik against [Jose Luis] Zertuche, Pavlik against [Jermain] Taylor,” said Loew. “I’ve been the underdog the whole time so it kind of falls into where I’d like to be.”

And Loew is hoping Yorgey will be the first of many top fighters to make the trek to northeastern Ohio.

“This is a big opportunity for him, but it’s a big opportunity for me, also,” Loew said. “One day me and Kelly’s going to come an end and when he walks away from this sport, I don’t want it to be the end of my career.

“I think this is a very good first start. I got a kid coming to me in a title position, as I always hoped. Now it’s my job to get him to that title spot.”

scalzo@vindy.com