Boyd "Rainmaker" Melson (born October 16, 1981) is a retired American
light middleweight
Light middleweight, also known as junior middleweight or super welterweight,PeBoxRec/ref> is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing
The light middleweight division (also known as junior middleweight in the IBF or super welterweight in the WBA an ...
boxer.
As an amateur, Melson won the 48th
World Military Boxing Championship gold medal
A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture.
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...
in the weight class, and was a three-time
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
champion, a three-time NCBA
All-American boxer, a four-time West Point Brigade Open Boxing Champion, and received the Colonel Marcus Award. He also won gold medals at the All Army Boxing Championships four times and at the Armed Forces Boxing Championships three times. He made it to the quarterfinals in the welterweight
2005 World Amateur Boxing Championships placing 5th in the world, won a bronze medal at the 2005
US Amateur Boxing Championships, won a silver medal at the 2006 US Amateur Boxing Championships, and was an Alternate for the 2008 US Olympic Boxing Team.
As a professional, Melson retired with a record of 15–2–1, with 4 of his wins coming by
knockout
A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...
.
He is tall, and competed professionally at .
Melson donates all of the money that he earns in his boxing matches to
spinal cord injury research
Spinal cord injury research seeks new ways to cure or treat spinal cord injury in order to lessen the debilitating effects of the injury in the short or long term. There is no cure for SCI, and current treatments are mostly focused on spinal cord ...
and his efforts have been profiled on ''
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel
''Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel'' is a monthly sports news magazine on HBO. Since its debut on April 2, 1995, the program has been presented by television journalist and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel.
Overview
Format
Each episode consists of fou ...
'',
ESPN.com
ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc.
History
Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including ...
, ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
'', and
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
, the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
In 2005, he received the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame "Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award." In 2013, he received the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame "Good Guy" Award. Melson was recently selected to be inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in the 2018 class of inductees.
Early and academic life
Melson is Jewish, and was born in Orange County, California as his father was stationed in Orange County while serving on Active Duty in the United States Army. At 10 months old, Melson's father was stationed at Fort Hamilton Army Base in Brooklyn, New York, where Melson spent the majority of his childhood. Melson was born to an Israeli Jewish mother (Annette Melson; also an Army veteran) and a Louisiana Creole father.
His maternal grandparents were
Holocaust survivor
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...
s from Poland.
He said:
"My grandfather, while being put onto a train en route to a death camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
, escaped by sliding down the receptor tank full of defecation. It deposited him down the track allowing the train to pass over him until he could run off escaping. That is what he did to fight for his life and allow his bloodline of Judaism to pass down to his children, and now his grandchildren in me.”
He boxes with a
Star of David
The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles.
A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...
on his trunks.
Melson grew up primarily in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
Melson graduated from
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
in 2003 with a psychology degree, and a minor in
nuclear engineering
Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of breaking down atomic nuclei ( fission) or of combining atomic nuclei (fusion), or with the application of other sub-atomic processes based on the principles of n ...
.
He also graduated as a
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...
, and was promoted to
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
three years later.
He earned an
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
in business administration at
Touro College
Touro University is a private Jewish university system headquartered in New York City, with branches throughout the United States as well as one each in Germany, Israel and Russia. It was founded by Bernard Lander in 1971 and named for Isaac an ...
.
Army champion and world military champion
Melson started boxing in
National Collegiate Boxing Association
The National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA) is a non-profit college sports organization that organizes boxing fights for student athletes. The association falls under the auspices of USA Boxing. After 1960, the NCAA no longer sanctioned box ...
(NCBA) competition while he was a
cadet
A cadet is an officer trainee or candidate. The term is frequently used to refer to those training to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. Its meaning may vary between countries which can include youths in ...
at West Point.
He was picked for the
US Army World Class Athlete Program, and sent to
Fort Carson
Fort Carson is a United States Army post located directly south of Colorado Springs in El Paso, Pueblo, Fremont, and Huerfano counties, Colorado, United States. The developed portion of Fort Carson is located near the City of Colorado Springs i ...
,
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
.
Melson was a four-time
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
champion.
He was also a three-time NCBA
All-American boxer, a four-time West Point Brigade Open Boxing Champion, and received the Colonel Marcus Award, which is given to the best West Point boxer at graduation.
He was trained by former
lightweight
Lightweight is a weight class in combat sports and rowing.
Boxing
Professional boxing
The lightweight division is over 130 pounds (59 kilograms) and up to 135 pounds (61.2 kilograms) weight class in the sport of boxing.
Notable lightweight boxe ...
world champion
Joey Gamache
Joseph Gamache (born May 20, 1966) is an American boxing trainer and former professional boxer. He is the second boxer from Maine to capture a world boxing title, as he won the WBA super featherweight title in 1991 and the WBA lightweight titl ...
in the first half of his professional boxing career, and trained by Simon Bakinde in the second half of his professional boxing career.
In 2004, he won the 48th
World Military Boxing Championship gold medal
A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture.
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...
in the 69 kg. weight class by defeating
Elshod Rasulov of
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...
at
Fort Huachuca
Fort Huachuca is a United States Army installation, established on 3 March 1877 as Camp Huachuca. The garrison is now under the command of the United States Army Installation Management Command. It is in Cochise County in southeast Arizona, appr ...
,
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
(as
Ait Hammi Miloud of Morocco shared the bronze medal with Vyacheslav Kusov of Ukraine).
That year he also won gold medals at the All Army Boxing Championships and the Armed Forces Boxing Championships.
Melson made it to the quarterfinals in the welterweight
2005 World Amateur Boxing Championships, losing to future pro star
Erislandy Lara
Erislandy Lara Santoya (born 11 April 1983) is a Cuban-American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBA (Regular) middleweight title since 2021. Previously he held various versions ...
of Cuba, the eventual gold medal winner.
That year he also won gold medals at the All Army Boxing Championships and the Armed Forces Boxing Championships, and a bronze medal at the 2005
US Amateur Boxing Championships.
He was an alternate on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Boxing Team, but withdrew with an injury.
Professional career
Melson became a professional in 2010 to raise research funds to honor a woman who had been his girlfriend. She had been in a wheelchair for 17 years, since the age of 10, following a diving accident.
[ They had met while Melson was home on leave at the end of his junior year at West Point, when she was already using a wheelchair due to a diving accident.][
Melson worked tirelessly to educate himself on spinal cord injuries and stem cell research. He traveled abroad with girlfriend Christan Zaccagnino so she could undergo experimental procedures that are not currently offered in the United States. While there, they were exposed to the vast expansion of work being done in this field that does not involve the use of embryonic stem cells.
Melson donates all of the money he earns in his boxing matches to ]spinal cord injury research
Spinal cord injury research seeks new ways to cure or treat spinal cord injury in order to lessen the debilitating effects of the injury in the short or long term. There is no cure for SCI, and current treatments are mostly focused on spinal cord ...
. He gives it to Justadollarplease.org, a non-profit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
that raises money for the first U.S. chronic spinal cord injury
Chronic may refer to:
* Chronic (cannabis), a slang name for high quality marijuana
* Chronic condition, a condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects
* Chronic toxicity, a substance with toxic effects after c ...
trial in using umbilical cord
In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologic ...
stem cells
In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type o ...
. Along with Justadollarplease.org, Melson created Team Fight to Walk, to increase awareness in boxing of the importance of stem cell research for spinal cord injuries. Team Fight to Walk is composed of Melson, former Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
football player Eric LeGrand
Eric J. LeGrand (born September 4, 1990) is a former American football defensive tackle who played college football at Rutgers. He became paralyzed while making a tackle in an October 2010 game, but has since regained movement in his shoulders ...
, former two-time IBF
The International Boxing Federation (IBF) is one of four major organizations recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) which sanctions professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Counci ...
cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham
Steven Ormain Cunningham (born July 15, 1976) is an American professional boxer who held the IBF cruiserweight title twice between 2007 and 2011. His nickname, "USS", is a reference to his US Navy service on the aircraft carriers and between ...
, US Olympians Shawn Estrada
Shawn Estrada (born April 1, 1985) is an undefeated Mexican American professional boxer in the Super Middleweight division and was a U.S. Olympian at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Estrada ran for the city council in Commerce, California.
Early life
R ...
and Demetrius Andrade
Demetrius Cesar Andrade ( ; born February 26, 1988) is an American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBO light middleweight title between 2013-2015, the WBA (Regular) title in 2017, ...
and contender Deandre Latimore
Deandre Latimore (born August 31, 1985) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2006 to 2012, and challenged once for the IBF junior middleweight title in 2009.
Early years and amateur career
Deandre began boxing at the age ...
amongst other boxers.
Through April 2014, Melson was 14–1–1, with 4 of his wins by way of knockout and the sole defeat coming via controversial decision in what was considered one of the best local fights on the New York scene in recent memory. Welterweight
Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify the ...
Dmitry Salita
Dmitry Salita (russian: Дмитрий Салита; uk, Дмитро Саліта), Dmitry Aleksandrovich Lekhtman, is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer. Born in Ukraine, he grew up in New York City from the age of nin ...
said of him following a May 2011 bout: "I have seen tremendous improvement in Boyd in the last two fights. He is a very talented fighter and sets an example inside and outside the ring."
Since 2012, Melson has been training with head coach Simon Bakinde.
Professional boxing record
, style="text-align:center;" colspan="8", 15 Wins (4 Knockouts 11 decisions), 2 Losses, 1 Draw
, - style="text-align:center; background:#e3e3e3;"
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Res.
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Record
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Opponent
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Type
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Rd., Time
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Date
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Location
, style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Notes
, - align=center
,
, , , align=left, Russ Niggemyer
,
,
,
, align=left,
, align=left,
, - align=center
Honors
He was honored as the 2005 Marty Glickman
Martin Irving Glickman (August 14, 1917 – January 3, 2001) was an American radio announcer who was famous for his broadcasts of the New York Knicks basketball games and the football games of the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
Glickman w ...
Outstanding Jewish Scholastic (college) Athlete of the Year by the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, in Commack, New York, is dedicated to honoring American Jewish figures who have distinguished themselves in sports.
Its objective is to foster Jewish identity through athletics, and to commemo ...
. In 2013, he received the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame "Good Guy Award." He said, as to his award: "I am pleased to show that ewscan excel in all areas of human endeavor, and that is what is of great importance to me in being honored."
Personal life
Outside of boxing, Melson works as a Motivational Speaker, a Group Fitness Instructor, and a Medical Device Sales Representative. He also serves as an Army Reserves
A military reserve force is a military organization whose members have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve ...
Captain assigned to the 361st Press Camp Headquarters stationed out of Fort Totten in Queens, NY.
Melson spends much of his time volunteering for a variety of non-profits, mostly on Staten Island. These include: Team Fight to Walk, BOXER INC., Stop Soldiers Suicide, STORE-A-TOOTH, BIGVISION, Steve Harvey Youth Mentorship Camp, Summit Academy Charter School, In Bed and Chair Recovery Foundation, Demarco's Gym Free Weekly Boxing Clinics, Teddy Atlas Cops and Kids, Great Black Speakers Bureau, and Camelot Drug Rehabilitation Center.
See also
* List of select Jewish boxers
References
External links
Team Fight To Walk website
Justadollarplease website
Facebook page
*
National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melson, Boyd
1981 births
Living people
Jewish American military personnel
American people of Creole descent
American people of Israeli descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Boxers from New York City
Jewish American sportspeople
Jewish boxers
Johnson & Johnson people
Light-middleweight boxers
Sportspeople from Brooklyn
People from White Plains, New York
Touro College alumni
United States Army officers
United States Army reservists
United States Military Academy alumni
American male boxers
21st-century American Jews
U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program