On Sunday, September 5, Xander Zayas turns 19 years old. It feels like several years since he turned 18, and with a laugh, he agrees.

“Tell me about it,” said the affable Puerto Rican prospect, who makes his fourth start of the year on September 10th’s Oscar Valdez-Robson Conceicao undercard.

The fight will mark Zayas’ 154-pound debut when he meets Jose Luis Sanchez, and the next chapter of a pro career that has seen him race out to a 9-0 record with seven knockouts. That’s a lot of fighting for a teenager, and maybe that’s why it seems like he’s been around forever. 

“This last year was pretty long, but I had fun,” he said. “After my 18th birthday, I had four fights, and man, it's been amazing. Now I'm gonna be 19, a little older, but still with the same goals.”

He’s made no secret of those goals. He doesn’t just want to win a title and make a few bucks. When it’s all said and done, Zayas wants to be seen as one of the best ever. And the beauty of being talented and a teenager is that such goals are possible with the right mindset, the right work ethic and the right breaks.

So far, everything has been breaking Zayas’ way, and that’s no surprise. He’s got the talent, the mindset, the work ethic and the right team around him. But the big “if” is whether he can maintain it when the distractions loom larger, when the days in the gym get tiring and he wants to be with his friends, and when the press clippings take his ego to new heights. It’s happened so many times before that boxing fans have become skeptical by nature, refusing to think Fighter A or Fighter B can break the cycle. But even some of the most cynical look at Zayas and see something different and they’re not afraid to say it. The Florida resident has seen those positive notices, but he’s not looking too deeply into them.

“I do try to read a couple of the stories that mention me, but I don't let it get to my head,” he said. “I stay humble, and I know that the same way somebody can love you today, tomorrow they may not like you if you do something wrong. So I just have to stay focused, stay dedicated, keep enjoying myself and keep disciplined.”

So far, so good. And while the prospect of being an all-time great is quite the motivator to stay on the right track, avoiding the wrath of his parents isn’t bad for Zayas, either.

“It starts with my parents,” he said. “I know that if I ever try or even think about doing something stupid, they will call it off and they will tell me, 'Hey, stop being silly.' It goes to the team, too. My coach, my manager, my nutritionist, my strength and conditioning coach, they're always checking up on me, they're always making sure that I'm doing everything that I need to do to stay on track and at the pace that I'm going. It's all a team effort - everybody does their part, and all I gotta do is train hard, wake up early and do what I love.”

And now, what Zayas loves is fighting. It’s evident in his megawatt smile, his enthusiasm for the sport and on fight night, his pursuit of the finish. And as the level of competition has risen, so have his performances, with his trio of 2021 victories over James Martin (6-1), Demarcus Layton (8-1-1) and Larry Fryers (11-3), showing that things are going perfectly to plan for the highly regarded Top Rank prospect.

“In training camp we're just breaking things down and trying to get better, but then when I put it all together in a fight, I feel it,” he said. “Maybe not in the moment, but right after when I watch the fight, I've improved from the last time I was in the ring. But I don't look at what I did right, because that's just part of growing. I look at what I did wrong and what I need to work on. I see the improvement and I can't wait to see what the future holds.”

Neither can his growing legion of fans. To them, in a boxing world where the negatives rule, the positives when it comes to Zayas are almost too good to be true, and it’s hard to argue with him. And while he can’t be put in bubble wrap or frozen until he can get in those big fights that will pack Madison Square Garden like Felix Trinidad or Miguel Cotto did, maybe we can rest easy knowing that Zayas sees what we’re seeing, and he doesn’t want to do anything that will keep him from his goals.

“There's great champions right now in every weight class that you could name but, in a way, I feel like in the future, I want to be that change,” he said. “I want to bring something new to the sport. I want to bring back that excitement that the sport used to have back in the 90s. I'm working hard and I'm sure that with the team that I have, with the determination that I have, I could bring that back. So I think it is a responsibility for me to keep things as they're going right now. I know I have a great team, and if I ever slip, they will put me back in place and get me to where I need to be. But we're not thinking about that. We know we're not gonna slip, we know we're gonna stay focused and we're gonna accomplish everything that we want.”