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Puerto Rican prospect Xander Zayas will take a break for a few days, before returning to the gym on the way to his sixth fight of 2021.
Zayas will see action on December 11, as part of the undercard to the lightweight fight between Vasiliy Lomachenko and Richard Commey, which takes place at Madison Square Gardens in New York City.
This past Saturday night, Zayas picked up a stoppage win over Dan Karpency as part of the undercard to the super featherweight clash between Shakur Stevenson and Jamel Herring.
Zayas is hoping to win this year’s “Prospect of the Year” award from the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA).
“We still don’t know who we are going against. We know it’s going to be eight rounds. It would be my first eight-round fight. Earlier this year I said I wanted to do six fights and finish with an eight rounder, and I am doing that. Now what I need is to win the ‘Prospect of the Year’ award – but we are close. We’re going to stay focused, and if I win that fight on December 11, I could win that award,” said Zayas to Sara Hernandez.
The boxer has a good pace this year with victories over James Martin and Jose Luis Sánchez by unanimous decision and another three by technical knockout against Demarcus Layton, Larry Fryers and Karpency.
Zayas, 19-years-old, has a record of 11-0, with eight knockouts.
Zayas explained that he is prepared to fight over eight rounds because his bout against Karpency was initially stipulated to last that long. However, ESPN decided to cut it to six due to production issues on the card.
“I was training at eight, 10 rounds of sparring, so the physical condition was there. Now what is needed is to continue [at this pace]” Zayas stated.