By Thomas Gerbasi
Some fights are won and lost in a ring. But the most important ones are fought outside the ropes. On Thursday, the two meet when Boyd Melson faces Hector Rivera at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City.
As far as the boxing world is concerned, it’s a bout pitting a 2-0 prospect (Melson) against a 2-7 opponent (Rivera), and you know how those fights usually turn out. But beyond what happens in the ring is where the real story lies, and it’s one that began in a White Plains dance club nine years ago, when Melson met a young lady named Christan Zaccagnino.
“I saw her from behind,” said Melson, who had just finished his third year at Westpoint, “She was with her friends, and I thought man, I bet nobody ever thought to ask to dance with this girl.”
Why? Because she was in a wheelchair, her prison since the age of 10 when a diving accident took away her ability to walk. But Melson was undeterred, especially after seeing her face to face.
“At first I didn’t see her face and didn’t realize how extraordinarily, phenomenally pretty she is,” he said. “And I tried to dance with her and her friends cut me off.”
“What are you doing?” they asked.
“I want to dance with her.”
“You can’t.”
“Can I ask?”
Christan’s friends looked down at her and she nodded ‘yes’.
“It took off from there,” said Melson.
At the time, Melson was a rising star in the amateur boxing ranks, and by the time his career was done, he would compile three US Armed Forces titles, a 2004 World Military Championship, and a Silver medal at the 2006 US Championships while beating the likes of Keith Thurman and Deandre Lattimore. In 2007, he even received the call to be an alternate on the 2008 US Olympic team. The only thing was, the body of the 2003 Westpoint graduate wasn’t willing to cooperate, and after his third shoulder surgery, he assumed his time in the ring was over.
“I gave up my alternate spot and I thought I was done.”
It was November of 2007. A job in the corporate sector followed, and it was a rough fit for Melson.
“I had a very hard time assimilating myself into the corporate environment coming out of the military,” he said. “I couldn’t deal with people sugar coating things or not saying what they mean. I started realizing that it was not what I wanted to do anymore.”
There was still a fight to be fought with Christan though, and as the two’s relationship went from friendship to boyfriend / girlfriend and back to friendship, the one constant was that Melson was determined to be with her every step of the way as she tried to walk again. You hope, in your mind, that if a close friend was going through such a struggle that you would be there through thick and thin, but in reality, only a select few would actually step up and do it. Melson is one of those few.
“They definitely broke the mold when he was born,” said Zaccagnino of Melson. “As long as I’ve known him, and it’s been nine years now, I still find it very hard to explain him. What you see is what you get – he has a very bright, beautiful demeanor, it seems like he’s always in a good mood, and he’s not your typical guy. He’s always thinking about the next person, he puts himself second, and he’s just a really, really good person. He’s very strong-minded and when he wants to get something done, nothing gets in his way. And when it comes to our fight and our journey to walk again, from the time that he met me until now, he’s still just as relentless. He just has that type of will.”
But it’s gone beyond holding his friend’s hand and saying ‘you can do it.’ Melson and Zaccagnino have traveled around the globe, had fund raisers, and have seen numerous doctors in an effort to get her out of her chair and, in the process, give hope to others with spinal cord injuries.
“I don’t know how to stop living without chasing this with her and fortunately, it’s not just her that it benefits,” he said. “I’ve invested the last eight, nine years of my life to get her out of this chair and walking and it’s turned into a quest for all people who suffered spinal cord injuries to get them out of their chairs. I spent a long time reading and educating myself on neurology and neuroscience and stem cells so I could understand the right questions I had to ask and the right answers, and taking Christan around the world multiple times to have stem cell procedures.”
And as the years have passed, there are signs that one day the 28 year old will walk again.
“She’s got pockets that work that shouldn’t be working,” said Melson. “Her toes wiggle, the muscles in her leg fire, but she can’t move her hip flexors to make herself walk. She’s got most of the use of her upper body. She looks like somebody who’s sitting in the chair.”
Those bright rays of light keep this a fight worth fighting for Christan.
“When I have bad days, I think to myself, okay at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for me and I get very excited,” she said. “And there are days when I say to myself ‘is this gonna be it? Is this gonna be the thing that works?’ I’ve done so much in the past years and tried so much, and granted, all of it has given me something back; I have feeling in my legs, I can stand, I’m a lot stronger than I used to be, and I’ve gotten a tremendous amount back.”
Recently, there’s been even more reason to be optimistic, as the SCINet USA organization, led by Dr. Wise Young (best remembered as the doctor that treated actor Christopher Reeve after his tragic 1995 accident) is in the process of developing a clinical trial in which cells from umbilical cords removed after the birth of newborns are used to help patients regain the ability to walk.
“The first clinical trial in the United States is going to get started this year using umbilical cord cells,” said Melson They’ve already started it in China, and people are starting to get sensations back that they haven’t had for who knows how many years. He (Young) is light years ahead of where anybody else is or is willing to bring to clinical trial.”
The website www.justadollarplease.org has been launched to raise money for the trials and more research, but there’s still a lot to be done. That’s where Melson comes in again.
Disillusioned with the corporate world, he returned to New York, started working as a personal trainer, and resumed his military career in the Army reserves, where he is currently a Captain of the 1179th Transportation Brigade at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. He fought in a couple amateur events in 2010, and then decided that he needed boxing in his life again on a more consistent basis.
So he made the jump into the pro ranks, winning a four round decision over Andrew Jones last November. In February he made it 2-0 with a decision victory against Marquise Bruce, and this Thursday, he’ll look to keep his record spotless against Rivera. He admits that he wants to see how far he can take things in the ring, but the real motivation is still Christan’s fight to walk, and he’s donating all of his fight purses to that fight.
“Boxing allows me to express myself and it’s also something I think I’m good at, so you always tend to lean toward things you’re good at,” said Melson, who has also reacquainted himself with the business world in his day job for a division of Johnson & Johnson. “I also want to see how well I can do in this and I want to become a very loud voice for spinal cord injuries and for our disabled veterans. I want to try and help use my success in the ring as a platform, so I figure that if I can do well in this sport, people will listen to what I have to preach.”
Thursday night, the 29 year old will go into a four round undercard bout like it’s a championship fight, and in a lot of ways it is. In fact, it’s a bunch of championship fights as far as he’s concerned.
First, there will be a tribute to his graduating class on his trunks.
“I carry my classmates with me every time I go into the ring,” he said. “I was fortunate enough to never have to get deployed. A couple of them have been killed, a lot of them have been injured, and they sacrificed their time by going out there when I got to go home every night. I think about that every day.”
Then there’s Christan Zaccagnino, the toughest fighter you’ll find without gloves on her hands.
“I don’t feel like I’m in the right place,” she said of the injury that has kept her in a wheelchair for 18 years. “It’s as if a New Yorker who’s lived here their entire life moves to California. If they get used to it, fine. But if you really belong in New York, then you’re never gonna feel comfortable. I understand that I’m in a chair and there’s a certain way that I have to live and certain things that I need to do, and that’s fine, but I’ve never felt comfortable with it, and that’s what’s kept me going. This is not the end for me. This is not my life.”
She pauses before continuing.
“And I’m stubborn, so if you tell me I can’t do something, I want to do it even more.”
Then there’s Boyd Melson. Westpoint Grad. Army Reserves Captain. Junior middleweight prizefighter. And maybe the most important title of all – friend.
“I guess maybe I was born with that makeup to find somebody and want to fight a fight with them,” he says humbly. “She (Christan) is the toughest son of a gun that I ever met, and I’ve always told her that the day you say you don’t want this anymore, I’ll stop pushing. But she wants this and she’s willing to go through so many sacrifices and do whatever it takes, so it really fires me up.”