Francisco Ayala's vanguard works written from 1928 to 1930 are often considered a brief parenthesis in his narrative oeuvre, which is otherwise ethically, philosophically, and/or politically engaged. This essay sidesteps the controversy over vanguard aesthetics versus ethically committed literature in Ayala's fiction to analyze the title story of El boxeador y un angel (1929) within the context of Ayala's early biography, boxing literature, angel symbology, and works of the 1920s by Gabriel Miro, Rafael Alberti, and Azorin that employ angel figures. I suggest that Ayala joins the disparate elements-a boxer and an angel-in an allegory of the writer's struggle in the modem metropolis and his path to aesthetic creation.