At 41, Tim Flamos was about to hang up his gloves. Then 'The Contender' called.

Brockton-based boxer Tim Flamos had retired at age 41, but came out of retirement to compete on the reality show "The Contender," the boxing series produced by reality-television kingpin Mark Burnett. (Michele McDonald/Globe Staff)

BROCKTON - Boxer Tim Flamos works out these days in the garage of his longtime friend and trainer, Joe Ennis. It's not glamorous: motorcycles parked inside, dogs out back.

"It's nice," says Flamos, 41, an unfailingly polite cruiserweight who has won 20 of his 25 professional bouts, but has never made much of a name for himself outside of New England. Until now.

Set to retire after a TKO last March in a rematch with Stoughton's Chris McInerney, Flamos was intrigued by a sudden invitation to try out for the fourth season of "The Contender," the boxing series produced by reality-television kingpin Mark Burnett. What did he have to lose?

"I didn't think much of it at first. I figured they'd consider me too old," said Flamos, waiting on a lunchtime plate of spaghetti at George's Café in Brockton, his hometown. It's an old-school, red-checked-tablecloth joint with photos of the city's prizefighting heroes, Rocky Marciano and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, hanging just inside the front door.

It was Brockton boxing promoter Rich Cappiello, a descendant of the late Marciano, who submitted Flamos's name to a connection at "The Contender." Though the fighter gave himself long odds to make the show, the producers grew to love his story line: Good-hearted journeyman from a famed boxing city takes one last shot at glory.

Few fighters can keep at it into their 40s, said Tony Danza, the actor and onetime boxer who has taken over for Sugar Ray Leonard as host of "The Contender." But Flamos, who doesn't drink or smoke, claims to be in the same shape he was at 25. With enormous biceps on his trim, 190-pound frame, "he looks like somebody drew him," Danza said in a telephone interview.

"He does have that story that's sort of custom-made for our show," said "Contender" executive producer Eric Van Wagenen in another phone interview. "He's tough as nails, a family man, been around boxing a long time, but just hasn't been seen by the right people. You can't help but cheer for this guy."

After five days of intense screening in Los Angeles in early September, Flamos was chosen as one of 16 contestants and whisked away to Singapore, where they stayed for a month in a converted warehouse.

No resort, the facility was nevertheless all-inclusive: The gym and living quarters on the ground floor, the arena upstairs. "There were no windows," Flamos said, "and we only got to go outside for a run or for our [on-camera] interviews." It was like prison lockdown, said Flamos, who works by day as a corrections officer for the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Characteristically, he wasn't complaining. "We made the best of it," he said with a shrug.

Unlike past seasons on "The Contender," when the fighters were treated to visits from their families, the new season is shorter on sentiment. Flamos was allowed just one 15-minute phone call every other day with his children. The first episode of the new season aired Wednesday night, with a live championship event scheduled for late February at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.

After a debut season on NBC and the last two on ESPN, "The Contender" has moved to the Versus sports network. Van Wagenen said the producers are enthusiastic about the prospect of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond, after a disappointing third season during which the program was little more than "a blip" on ESPN's overcrowded radar.

Having worked with Burnett on "Survivor," "The Apprentice," and other series, Van Wagenen said he still counts "The Contender" as his favorite. "I've never worked on a show that's as much fun and has such incredibly loyal fans," he said. "They'd follow us to YouTube if we went there for a season."

Danza said he thinks "The Contender" has been stripped down for the better - no more gratuitous Sylvester Stallone visits, no young children watching their fathers get their clocks cleaned from ringside.

"We've made it more about boxing," he said. "In Singapore, there were no families. I was basically everybody's family. And I got them to talk about why, what is it they do this for. What it feels like to hit a guy in the chin and hear the crowd roar."

Now 57, Danza couldn't resist climbing into the ring for a few rounds of sparring. "They took it easy on me," he said.

"He's a real good guy, real down-to-earth," Flamos said of Danza. "I used to watch him on TV, so I felt like I knew him already."

Raised by his grandparents, Flamos was a star defensive end on the formidable Brockton Boxers football teams of the mid-1980s. A natural bruiser who likes to say he has Spartan blood, he was "fooling around" as early as age 13 in Goody Petronelli's gym, where he met Hagler, then on the verge of becoming middleweight champion.

But Flamos didn't start boxing professionally until age 28, when he knocked out his opponent in the first round of his debut. In 13 years in the ring, Flamos has held the Massachusetts and New England cruiserweight titles, at the expense of his marriage: His wife could never bring herself to support his boxing habit.

Though his contract with "The Contender" prohibits him from revealing how he fared, Flamos said he now expects to continue fighting. "He keeps coming forward, and he throws huge punches," Van Wagenen said. "Without giving anything away, he had the entire Singapore audience chanting his name by the end."

Danza, too, became a supporter. "It's not in the show, but I'm gonna tell you," he said. "I got very emotional after his fight."

Like the other Contenders - including New Hampshire's Rich Gingras, who trains with the father of season one's Peter Manfredo Jr. - the producers own a piece of Flamos's career for the next five years. Some past Contenders have grumbled about the arrangement. Not Flamos.

"I've got a whole new lease on life," he said.

As long as he can keep putting up the good fight, he's satisfied. When the waitress comes to clear his plate, she chides him for not finishing his meatballs.

"You can have 'em," Flamos says with a smile.