AMERICA AT LARGE:US army officer Boyd Melson doubles as a professional boxer and has been donating his purses and time to a cause close to his heart
BOXING PROMOTER Lou DiBella recognised early on that Bernstein and Sondheim were on to something when they came up with the idea for a musical set amidst the backdrop of New York's ethnic and neighborhood rivalries, and since West Side Story'sSharks-Jets rivalry was an updated retelling of similar rumbles between the Montagues and Capulets back in Verona, Shakespeare should probably be credited as the spiritual Godfather of Broadway Boxing.
In the early days of DiBella’s long-running series of club-fight shows, yarmulke-wearing Orthodox Jews turned up in swarms to root for Yuri Foreman or Dmitry Salita, and on a 2004 Broadway Boxing card at the Hammerstein Ballroom headlined by Salita, green-clad Irish supporters of John Duddy, Polish fans of Pawel Wolak (red), and the Brownsville constituency of Curtis Stevens (thug camouflage and jackboots) were all present in abundance in the audience.
It wasn’t surprising, then, to see a few hundred enthusiastic Gabriel Bracero partisans, clad in matching red T-shirts, turn out in force when the undefeated Puerto Rican light welterweight headlined a Broadway Boxing card at BB King’s Blues Club back in February, nor was it unusual that their numbers were rivalled by the green-wearing backers of Long Beach light-heavyweight Seánie Monaghan, who stopped Angel Gonzalez in a light heavyweight brawl.
What did get our attention that night was the presence of two dozen members of the US Military Academy’s Corps of Cadets who materialised as a passionate cheering section for Boyd Melson’s undercard fight against a Californian named Marquise Bruce.
But then this Melson is a pretty unusual boxer.
At the conclusion of the four-round fight – one which, truth be known, he barely won – he commandeered the ring announcer’s microphone and announced he was donating his purse to a foundation for embryonic stem cell research.
Melson then introduced his “special friend,” a wheelchair-bound young lady named Christian Zaccangino.
Then, following a brief appeal, the West Point cadets circulated among the boxing fans, and collected, it’s safe to say, more money for the cause than DiBella had paid Melson for his evening’s work against Bruce.
As it turned out, Melson had also donated the purse from his previous professional fight, his pro debut at the Aviator Arena in Brooklyn last autumn, to the same cause, and has pledged the same again tonight when he enters the ring for the third time, on a card co-promoted by Salida and impresario Jed Weinstein at the Roseland Ballroom.
If you’re wondering about the largesse of the neophyte pro, it should be noted the 29 year-old Melson does have a day job. He is a captain in the United States army.
Following his 2003 graduation from West Point, where he had been a member of the varsity boxing team, Melson competed with some distinction as an amateur, defeating, among others, future world title challenger Deandre Latimore.
He participated in the 2004 Olympic Trials, and, as a Second Lieutenant, won the first of his three US Armed Forces titles.
In the 2008 Trials, he lost to eventual US representative Demetrius Andrade, but was named an alternate for the Beijing Games before he was sidelined by shoulder surgery.
And along the way he met Zaccagnino, who had been paralysed since breaking her neck in a diving accident when she was 13 years of age.
He describes her as “the most courageous person I’ve ever known”.
Melson, who continues to serve as an advisor to the West Point team, eventually hit upon the idea of merging her cause with his own.
Although the medical community is in general agreement that embryonic stem cell research offers the best hope for those paralysed with spinal cord injuries, that research was effectively shut down for the eight years represented by the faith-based administration of George W Bush.
In 2001, shortly after he had taken office, Bush decreed a halt to government funding of any entity involved in the destruction of human embryos.
In practice, this stifled virtually all meaningful research in the field.
A 2009 executive order from President Obama was supposed to clear the way, but two years later, neuroscientists remain hampered by Bush-era legislation still on the books.
The contributions engendered from purses from four-round undercard fights are admittedly pretty small potatoes, but by appealing to the audiences Melson has actually raised thousands of dollars for the cause, to say nothing of heightening public awareness.
Earlier this week, with Melson poised to meet Hector Rivera at the Roseland Ballroom in New York tonight, it was announced that five other boxers – Melson’s old amateur rival Latimore, along with prospects Dennis Dougan, Sid El Harak, Vinny O’Brien, and Delen Parsley – had signed on with Melson’s “Team Fight to Walk” and would henceforth be donating a portion of their own purses to the cause of stem cell research.
“I’m very happy to be helping out,” said Latimore.
“I know many people who are paralysed, and becoming involved makes me feel like a better person because I know that I’m helping those in need.”
The first clinical trials in nearly a decade are supposed to get underway this year, and an optimistic Melson remains confident Zaccagnino will one day walk again.
“Boxing allows me to express myself, but it’s also something I think I’m good at,” Capt Melson told BoxingScene’s Thomas Gerbasi a few days ago.
“I want to see how well I can do in this, but I want to become a very loud voice for spinal cord injuries – and for our disabled veterans, who include some classmates of mine. I want to use my success in the ring as a platform, so if I can do well in this sport, people will listen to what I preach.”
