KISSIMMEE, Fla. – One winter in Pennsylvania was all it took to straighten out Nicklaus Flaz.

A 29-year-old welterweight from Puerto Rico, Flaz has taken a long, winding road from Bayamon and back again, and he may just now be arriving as a contender on the eve of his scheduled 10-round battle with Alan Sanchez in Saturday’s co-main event in Kissimmee, Florida.

Flaz’s first detour may have been his most formative. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he was already running the streets and, as he says, “doing bad stuff” by 11 years old. His mother saw the direction he was headed and made a decision: Her son would be banished to the Keystone State.

“My mom said, ‘You’re going – you gotta get out of Puerto Rico,’” Flaz said.

The change was abrupt – the language, the people, the weather. The first time Flaz saw snow, he says, “I got hyped.” But then it didn’t stop.

“I didn't like it,” he said. “The whole year I was always crying, ‘I want to go back! I want to go back!’”

First came a pit stop in New York, however, which required its own adjustment. Yet it was also where Flaz, a native Spanish speaker, began to learn English while mainlining a steady diet of American cartoons and movies. (After previously giving only “a couple” interviews in English, Flaz was enthusiastic and spoke with ease without an interpreter for this story.)

Lessons learned, he was moved back home to the P.R., where the next stage unfolded. “Then I regrouped myself,” Flaz said. “I started doing things the right way. I came back to Puerto Rico, started boxing.”

Flaz says he knew he wanted “to do right for myself,” but it was boxing that pulled him all the way out of the streets. He loved the adrenaline – delivering a punch and even getting punched – as well as the discipline. It was obvious how much he craved the former. But he also desperately needed the latter.

At age 15, Flaz – now 5-foot-9 – weighed 232 pounds. After moving back to Puerto Rico and dedicating himself in the gym day after day, he had melted off 100 pounds within 18 months. He eventually moved up a few ticks to settle in at welterweight. On fight morning Saturday, Flaz was spotted at the hotel breakfast bar ready to dig into a couple mini waffles – but only after he arrived cut up and hit his mark at 147 for Friday’s weigh-in. “The discipline, everything, now – this is my whole life,” he said.

The latest stage – the final leg? – for Flaz has come only recently, as he has gradually absorbed a different type of discipline. He piled up knockouts after turning pro, but he dropped a decision in his sixth fight. Flaz lost again – this time by stoppage – against a 15-0 Janelson Figueroa Bocachica as recently as 2020. He needed two more close-call majority decisions to find the balance in the ring that would unlock the next level.

“At the beginning of my career I was a brawler,” Flaz said. “You hit me twice, I hit you two, three times, I get you out of there. I didn't care about getting hit. Now I got a more polished style, so I can move, I can box, I can set you up.”

Now 14-2 (9 KOs), Flaz says he’s ready to graduate from co-mains to main events. He came close in April before an injury scuttled his headliner against Gabriel Maestre in Philadelphia. Promoter ProBox TV views him as a future world titleholder, and a win over Sanchez, 24-6-1 (10 KOs), would likely land Flaz’s face at the top of the fight poster for his next show.

“I'm really close,” Flaz said. “I was really, really close. But I know that after this fight I can get it anyway.”

Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.