LIKE plenty of children, every decision made and turn taken by Xander Zayas in his early years was one governed by necessity rather than the luxury of choice. He moved to the United States from Puerto Rico at the age of 11, for example, simply because that’s where his mother and stepfather wanted to put down their roots. Then, once there, he would learn to speak English within six months because without this ability he would feel even more displaced and alien than he did already. Before that, meanwhile, at the age of just six, he had been dropped off in a boxing gym and subsequently learned to box not because he wanted to but because his mother, concerned about the bullying he was having to endure, forced him down that path as a way of teaching him self-defence. That was, in fact, the first language other than his native tongue Zayas learned as a child: the language of self-defence; the language of fighting back; the language of adjusting to one’s environment.
“She just threw me out there to learn at first and, to be honest, I didn’t want to do it,” super-welterweight. “I didn’t want to get hit. I was already getting hit in the street, so why would I want to get hit for fun as well?
