By Ryan Burton

On January 31st former blue chip prospect Alex "El Pollo" De Jesus (21-1) will return to the ring for the first time since February, 2015 when he faces Joseph Elegele (14-2) at the Seminole Casino in Immokalee, Florida. The fight will open up the Premier Boxing Champions telecast on Bounce TV.

Prior to his fight last February, De Jesus was out of the ring almost five years after serving a four year prison stint on domestic violence charges.

The now 32-year-old De Jesus is grateful to have a second chance.

"Before anything else I want to thank God for giving me this opportunity.  I am also very thankful to my promoter Warriors Boxing and my manager New Face of Boxing.  To me this is like a debut. There have been so many years since I fought.  My training went very well. I trained very hard for this fight.  This fight is on television so it is very important for me to do well. The door is open for me to shine," said De Jesus.

The Puerto Rican admits that he made mistakes when he was younger.  He  may not be in his physical prime anymore but De Jesus feels that he still has a run left in him to make a mark in the sport and more importantly show that he is more mature and a changed man.

"Before I had everything. I was privileged. I was a lot younger and I had great people working with me but because I wasn't disciplined and responsible, I lost it all.  Because of that I had almost 5 years away from my career.

 "I am working hard in the gym but now I am 32 years old. If you compare me to when I was 20 or 21 years old, I think I still have the same energy and motivation. I had great people with me but I wasn't responsible.  Now I have great people with me again but I have to start over and convince people in the way that I win. I have to be responsible and do good things and represent Puerto Rico the right way so that I can try to clean up my mistakes of the past. That is another motivation that I have," De Jesus explained.

De Jesus didn't hold anything back when asked about the sport of boxing in general and the fans of the sport.  Like many say, they love you when you are on top and forget who you are when you fall off of your perch.

"The boxing fans, the fans that love the sport, they can be hypocrites with the fighters. When a fighter is winning and has fame and has a lot of followers and is a celebrity, everyone loves them. Then when they have a loss or make a mistake outside of the ring then people want to look at them bad. It isn't the same how they treat them. That is hypocrisy. When they are winning everyone loves them and then afterwards you see who they have left believing in them," De Jesus told BoxingScene.com.

De Jesus will campaign as a welterweight in his comeback (this fight is contracted at 149 pounds) and did want to make it clear that he is very thankful for the fans that he has had since day one.

"I would like to thank Bounce TV for giving me this opportunity and all of my team and all of the fans that have followed me since the beginning and have stuck with me. I want to tell them that I am very thankful for their support and plan on putting on a great show," stated De Jesus.

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