Over the last forty years, Puerto Rico has produced some of the most naturally talented fighters you will ever see in the ring.

Wilfredo Benitez, Felix “Tito” Trinidad, Hector Camacho and Miguel Cotto all proudly represented their country, finishing their decorated careers as world champions in multiple weight classes, with three of the four named being inducted into the coveted International Boxing Hall of Fame.

The trio took over from those who preceded them, most notably Wilfredo Gomez, another Hall of Famer and former three-division world champion.

After their unprecedented success, those who emulate it face the challenge of matching their achievements, and a fresh crop of talent from Puerto Rico aims to do just that.

Last year, Edgar Berlanga became one of the brightest stars of the next generation. The 23-year-old Up-to-date Yorker of Puerto Rican descent went 16-0 (16 KOs) with all of his wins coming in the first round, earning him the prospect of the year from Sports Illustrated and many other outlets.

Welterweight prospect Xander Zayas is on the rise and looks to take the mantle from Berlanga as he earns the title of 2021 Prospect of the Year.

The 18-year-old became the youngest signing in Top Rank’s illustrious history when he signed a promotional deal with Bob Arum’s company in 2019 after being introduced to the Hall of Fame promoter by his manager Peter Kahn.

Zayas (6-0, 5 KO) began boxing at just five years aged, encouraged by his mother to take up the sport after experiencing bullying.

At the age of 11, Xander moved to the United States. During his amateur career, Xander competed in over 100 fights, winning 11 national titles, and almost immediately felt surrounded by greatness, with his first fight being supervised by a certain Puerto Rican legend.

“Tito Trinidad, I met him when I was six or seven, it was my first fight and he was there,” Zayas said proboxing-fans.com.

“It was a great pleasure, incredible. The person who inspires me in boxing, the person I looked up to [to] Miguel Cotto appeared in the ring.

“He’s someone who was a champion of my generation in Puerto Rico, everyone watched him go and he stopped the game in Puerto Rico. He’s a player I admire and he inspires me to work difficult and want to be like him.

Zayas, who will return Saturday night on the undercard of an all-Mexico fight between WBC super featherweight champion Miguel Berchelt and Oscar Valdez in Las Vegas, has already drawn comparisons to former six-weight world champion Oscar De La Hoya.

The undefeated contender admits he is aware of the connections and is flattered by them, but is keen to maintain his status as he looks to cement his position in the coming years with his versatile style.

“I’ve heard those comparisons,” Zayas added.

“Maybe it’s because I’m youthful and always smiling. It’s an honor to be compared to legends like Oscar De La Hoya, but ultimately the most vital thing is to stay focused, dedicated and continue to work difficult.

“I am an aggressive fighter who likes to come forward, with good footwork, good head movement and a good combination of difficult shots to the body and head.

“Someone who can make that kind of change in any round [to] be able to win the fight and just generally be someone who can throw punches, can slide and counter, and just generally be an aggressive fighter.”

Zayas, who has been sparring with the returning Adrien Broner in preparation for his seventh fight, will face James Martin (6-1) at the MGM Grand Conference Center as part of Top Rank’s Bubble, and the Florida native expects the Philadelphia fighter to pass the toughest test of his career.

If he can defeat the 23-year-old, Zayas hopes to fight five more times this year as he looks to accelerate his career.

“On paper, this is the toughest competition for me,” he added.

“On Saturday evening I expect a lot of fireworks from body to head, a lot of movement, good defense, edged play, agility and strength.

“I’ve been working really, really difficult all camp and I can’t wait to showcase my talent this Saturday night, so don’t miss it on ESPN+ in the States and BoxNation in London. Don’t miss it because I’m going to put on a show.

“Saturday night I’m going to show that we’re ready and this is my year. I’m ready to take over this year.

“The goal for this year is to fight at least six times this year. I want to end the year fighting eight rounds. I also want to escalate my competitiveness every time I step into the ring and finally, most importantly, win the prospect of 2021.

Zayas is close friends with lightweight world champion Teofimo Lopez, whom he describes as his “substantial brother.”

Lopez dethroned Vasiliy Lomachenko in October, adding the WBA “Super,” WBO, and WBC Franchise belts to his IBF crown in just his 16th fight, and Zayas says that like the Brooklyn native, he’ll be ready to seize the opportunity on the biggest stage when the opportunity presents itself.

Asked if he draws inspiration from Lopez’s accelerated progress, Zayas replied: “100%. This generation is here to stay, he said.

“Again, I want to take it one step at a time. When the right opportunity comes, I know my team and I will make the decision and be ready to step into the ring with whoever they put in front of us.

“I want to fight my best, when the time comes I will give it my all and do whatever I have to to get the win.”

Zayas is in the early stages of what many expect to be a long and successful career. At just 18, he has plenty of time to develop his game, and Saturday night could bring him one step closer to carving out his own legacy as the next great Puerto Rican.

Watch the full interview with Xander Zayas below:

“April 6, 2021, I will be tidy for two years. It’s true, even though I’ve finished rehab, I’m still recovering. I still have dreams and wake up in the middle of the night thinking I lost a lot of money on bets.

Boxing without crowds has become the recent norm during the pandemic, but for Ted Cheeseman, the biggest fight of his life took much longer behind closed doors.

In a brutally forthright account of his journey over the past two years, Cheeseman joins James Lupton for a candid interview where he reflects on his recovery from addiction.

Cheeseman was 20 when he won his professional debut, stopping Gabor Ambrus in two rounds at the o2 arena following the victory of Anthony Joshua vs Gary Cornish.

However, the battle of his life began when he was just 17 years vintage, and Ted battled this demon for six years.

“I see people talking about their friends who let this get to them and I think, How could I have ever lived in that bubble for so long?

“From 17 to 23, it was a lifestyle. It wasn’t just a hobby. It was like boxing was a hobby and gambling was my career.

“It’s crazy to think about it.”

A day in the life of a boxer is very strict, almost regimental. A routine ingrained in their brains and a tunnel vision of success. For the former British champion, his routine was very different when discussing his previous antics on proboxing-fans.com.

“On Saturday or Friday I could be at the bookmaker until 10:00, do my job well, and then I’ll call my lady and tell her to get ready, I’ll take her to Aspersa [Casino].

“I would book her into a hotel and tell her I’d be back in a few hours and I wouldn’t be back at the hotel until about 6 or 7 in the morning, I’d made another load of money. I’m sitting there with my head in my hands thinking, what am I supposed to do?

“I just kept doing it over and over again. It’s crazy. I think back to when I was 21 and I went to Blackpool with my wife.

“Of course, during the day you have the theme parks and you can eat a little bit, but there was a gigantic casino there and I immediately said, ‘Let’s go there,’ and I immediately did everything I had to do, again.”

As his addiction grew and encroached upon Ted’s life, his mental health began to deteriorate, and negative, and then morbid, thoughts emerged and persisted.

“I thought, what is my life? What am I doing with my life? I finally got to the point where I didn’t want to make money, because whatever money I made, I knew it was going to last. The problem wasn’t the lack of money, it was me, I couldn’t control the addiction.

“I hated boxing, I even hated life in general. I even got to the point where I thought, what’s the point in boxing, because what I earn in boxing, I’m just going to gamble, so I might as well be a real loser and earn nothing.

“Those were the thoughts I had, it’s crazy that I had those thoughts, sometimes I said to myself what’s the meaning of life, I might as well kill myself.”

As an alcoholic or drug addict, you have observable signs of addiction, but gambling is an addiction that you can mask. Only those who witnessed it sensed it, but no one could stop it. Only Ted could do it.

“I hit rock bottom. They say when you’re addicted, that’s when you get support. Until I hit rock bottom, which I did [Sergio Garcia] fight, I thought my career might be over, that’s when I decided I needed support.

“The night of the Garcia fight, I knew I had no more money from the fight and I owed [trainer] Tony [Sims] money from tickets and other things.

“I thought to myself, all I want is to win this fight to get a world title eliminator and then I’ll get a lot of money, that’s all I thought about. It’s become like you don’t care about your career, you care about her [money].”

That fateful night in 2019 was the final straw, and the 25-year-old had to speak out. The first defeat of his professional career was a blessing in disguise.

“If I had never spoken to Tony after the Garcia fight, would have had another fight, sold all the tickets again and spent the entire purse before I even fought and got beaten again, that would have been the end of my career!

“But I came out and admitted it. The most significant thing is to admit the problem. People would often say to me, ‘Why are you doing this, why are you wasting all this money?’ I would just say, ‘It’s my money, I earn it. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do with my money if I want to spend every penny on gambling!’ But what do you do when you can’t earn more money?

“Until you understand addiction, you don’t know how to deal with it. A lot of people tell me, ‘Why are you gambling, you’re wasting your money,’ not, ‘Why are you gambling, you could ruin your mental health, you’re going to ruin your life.’ It all goes straight to the financial side, not to the problems it can cause.”

The next step for the super welterweight was rehabilitation. A chance to overcome this battle and win the war.

Now, two years after filling out his last coupon, the signs of addiction in others are crystal clear to Ted, and he now understands addiction, something he thanks his time in rehab for.

“I see it now in every aspect because when we were in rehab, we did AA meetings, drug meetings, all the meetings because it was a mix of people, so you see all the aspects of different addictions and how some addictions can lead to others.

“It’s crazy to see how it’s destroying people’s lives. If you don’t catch it at the right time, it’s going to affect you.

“Now I can control it, I think to myself, how could I ever get into that state of mind?! You see people do it with alcohol, drugs, food, and all sorts of things, and that’s a really bad way to be.”

Bermondsey brawler gets second chance at boxing career. Now committed to the sport, Cheeseman takes his obsessive, addictive traits and uses them to his advantage.

“The person I was back then, compared to the person I am today, is completely different, even the fighter I am now because I really want to box.

“Now that I’m in camp, I’m totally focused on boxing. I have to be in bed at a certain time, I have to take my vitamins at a certain time, I have to eat at a certain time, and it’s an addiction because I have an addictive personality.

There is earnest money to be made in British Championship boxing and above. Anyone recovering from addiction is at risk of relapse.

Ted is motivated not by money but by success.

“It’s not the financial aspect that hurts you, because you can make money your whole life in this or that career. It’s the mental aspect of it, whether it hurts what you’re trying to achieve. If it hurt my boxing career too much, before there was no turning back, if I didn’t admit I was an addict, I would have been ruined.”

“Although the purse has to match, I’m not fighting for money, I’m fighting to go as far as I can. Obviously you have to make sure you’re taking the right money for the fights because it’s a business, but as long as I can live and have a decent life and my family can have a decent life.

“I want to try and achieve as much as I can. When I started boxing and I was addicted to gambling, I didn’t care about boxing, I just cared about getting as far as I could as quickly as I could and making as much money as I could.

The revival continues on March 6th when Ted fights for the British title he once lost when he faces JJ Metcalf in the Dillian Whyte vs. Alexander Povetkin rematch, in a fight that for him is more than just a fight.

“It means a lot because it’s part of the recovery. When I started to recover, I lost my belt [in a fight] that I felt I didn’t deserve to fail. Now I get a chance [to win it back]it’s like I’m a little lucky now to be offered a fight and a chance to get my belt back.

“I’m glad I got out of that situation, now I have a very good life and I’m enjoying my career again.”

Redemption is in full swing for Ted as he is in good shape both mentally and physically. Life now begins for Cheeseman.

Heavyweight prospect Johnny Fisher says he was thrilled with his debut victory and feels he has coped with the weight of expectations.

Fisher (1-0, 1 KO) got off to a winning start in his highly anticipated debut, dropping Matt Gordon twice en route to a first-round stoppage at the SSE Arena on Saturday.

The ‘Romford Bull’, who trained in Fuerteventura alongside WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in preparation, says he couldn’t be happier with his start to professional life.

“I feel relieved, I feel cheerful, I feel relaxed,” Fisher said. proboxing-fans.com.

“I feel like with all that hype and expectation around me, I showed a little bit of what I can do.

“There is a lot more work to do with Mark [Tibbs] and Steven [Andrews] and my team, and that’s just a good start.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better start than a first-round knockout against Matt Gordon, who we have to thank for his work, he’s dealt with other opponents, other debutants have come through, he’s lasted two years, three rounds, and he’s always been stopped on his feet.

“Since I knocked him down a few times, I’m quite cheerful with that, it’s a good performance.

“I wouldn’t be unhappy if the fight went four rounds, if I boxed well, I would box well, because I know I’m powerful, I know I have strength, and every heavyweight has a little bit of power in it. But I know I have massive hands.

“So all I did was the first 20-30 seconds, I thought I’d establish my power, let him know you have that power, let him feel it, and if you notice it in the second minute, just serene down, and I didn’t take a breath, I just calmed down a little bit and assessed the situation, and then I started taking counter right hands because it was coming down.

Fisher has had well-publicised sparring sessions with the likes of British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight champion Joe Joyce, English champion Fabio Wardley and former world title challenger Hughie Fury.

The 21-year-old, who has just made his debut, believes that high-level friendlies have improved his game and played a key role in helping him stay serene under the lights.

“I didn’t think I’d be as hooked as I was,” Fisher added.

“I think it helped me change my mentality from being a raging bull, someone who just charges in, head first, smash, smash, smash.

“I think we saw that in that fight because I was a little bit, not reckless, but I was very aggressive for the first 20, 30, 40 seconds, and then it gave me presence of mind.

“When you spar loads of rounds with people like Fabio Wardley, Joe Joyce, Hughie Fury, Dave Allen, you learn from them that you have to pace yourself, it’s 12 rounds of boxing that we’re going to work towards, so you have to pace yourself, you can’t fight at a relentless pace, you have to be switched on.

“It’s definitely benefited me and I hope I can now start translating their sparring performances into boxing matches.”

The Essex fighter is hoping to return to the ring in behind schedule April or May and while his aim is to be as dynamic as possible with just 10 amateur fights under his belt, he admits he is in no rush and expects to be given more tough tests.

“I know I’m not a world-class hitter yet,” Fisher continued.

“I have the basics, good skills and good power, but I still have to learn to improve them. I’m not calling people names or saying I’m going to be the next massive thing.

“I’m going to follow the advice Conor Benn gave me when he did an interview with Sky later.

“He said people are going to be rooting for you to fight this guy, fight that guy, fight this guy, but listen, I have plenty of time, nobody’s going to rush me into these massive fights.

“I don’t have to, I really don’t have to, because I’ll burn out. I have to keep my balance and I’ve had enough tough fights, fighting at the sub-national level and getting those tough guys out there, so I’ve got a long, long way to go before I even think about competing with them guys.

Watch the full interview with Johnny Fisher below: