By Thomas Gerbasi
Boyd Melson is like most boxers, with retirement just a word used to take a break until the next fight comes along. But unlike most boxers, when Melson’s next fight came along, it had nothing to do with the ring.
This one was much more important than a title, a TV date or a big payday. For the 35-year-old New Yorker, his fight was to bring awareness to the heroin epidemic sweeping through Staten Island.
In 2015, there were 69 fatal drug overdoses, and as of November 1st, the 2016 number sat at 75. For a place always called the forgotten borough of New York City, it is more visible than ever, as it’s now in the news constantly as the ground zero for drug abuse.
That doesn’t sit well with Melson.
“I met with the DA (Mike McMahon) in September and he said there were 74 reported deaths up through September, and that maybe there would be 30 percent more,” he said. “And I was thinking that if you had a mass murderer that killed 74 people, everybody would be trying to hunt this guy down.”
So how does Melson fight back? By fighting. On Saturday, he will put on the gloves for the first time since May of 2015 to face Courtney Pennington at Foxwoods in Mashantucket, Connecticut. It isn’t a bout designed to begin a title run or simply add to the win total on his 15-1-1 pro slate. It’s to start putting some muscle behind a fight that needs to be won.
He couldn’t just run the New York Marathon to bring awareness to this issue?
“Yeah right,” he laughs. “You know how much harder that is than fighting? That is pure death.”
That’s a fighter talking, and as Melson explains, his reason for choosing to put his mouthpiece back in has everything to do with the publicity he gains for stepping through the ropes.
“When I was working towards trying to bring attention to paralysis, I saw what the difference would be every time I had a fight coming up versus no fight coming up,” he said. “And when I had a fight and I wanted to voice my opinion, I noticed how people congregated around a lot more when they knew I was fighting. Boxing doesn’t have a league, so unless you’re a world champion, there are only a couple people who can still garner enough attention in the sport where if they do something in the public eye, people are going to surround it.
“If I tried to state all this and I hadn’t been active for a year and a half, it would be different if I had just been active a month ago,” Melson continues. “NY1 decided to film and then News 12 decided to. And then the Staten Island Advance did a feature. I don’t believe those things would have happened without me doing this.”
Melson will be donating his entire purse from the Pennington fight to aid in this fight, which is being led Big Vision, a non-profit formed by Eve Goldberg, who lost her 23-year-old son to a heroin overdose. There are also several gyms, including Rustam’s Boxing Club, that are interested in having Melson give boxing workshops for people facing addiction. The ultimate goal? Building a facility similar to the YMCA that will have medical staff on hand while providing programs for those at risk
“It would be a free center for people who are either afraid of relapsing or who are afraid of falling into drugs to go to whenever they want,” said Melson, who would also like to run for office on the island. Talk about trading the dirty business of boxing for the dirtier business of politics.
“Now, of course we don’t know until the universe presents itself what our final decisions are going to be, but I would like to run for office in Staten Island and become an elected official sometime soon, and I’d like to be a leader within the community,” he said. “And I’m hoping this will let people know how serious I am about being willing to fight for the community.”
That means no more fighting for glory in a ring where he defeated Keith Thurman as an amateur, won three US Armed Forces titles, a 2004 World Military Championship, and a Silver medal at the 2006 US Championships, while also being offered a spot as an alternate on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team before injuries forced him to turn it down.
“I have not thought about it at all,” he said of the time after his win over Mike Ruiz last year, one that earned him the WBC USNBC 154-pound title. “I had told my family last year, when I was fortunate and had gotten that WBC title, that I was calling it a day. And the only reason that I’m getting myself up off the couch that I can think of is for this. People seem to be inspired by people risking hurting themselves for something that’s beyond themselves. And I just know it’s starting to work and it’s bringing attention.”
It’s as good a reason as any, and the fact that Melson isn’t a Staten Island native makes his insistence of fighting for the borough even more impressive. But he does have deep ties to the island and to the problem afflicting it.
“I grew up in Brooklyn, but I had three Aunties that lived on Staten Island and Bayley Seton was the hospital I always went to for health care and Fort Wadsworth was the base I traveled to often, and it was amazing because when I would visit my friends and family, you felt like you were in an entirely different state,” he said. “I guess when you’re a child, where you live is the only borough you have exposure to, but Staten Island happened to be the other one because of the military and family, so I spent a lot of time there. And then I came across that article in May when they wrote that 40 people had died so far from overdosing, and I read that number and I started thinking about it because I have addiction to alcohol throughout my family and I grew up with it and it’s what I’ve known. And my cousin that grew up on Staten Island, grew up an addict to stronger drugs. So that hit as well.”
Now Boyd Melson is hitting back.
“This is not something that goes away. It only gets worse. I was told it’s $5 to $10 a hit for heroin, and they say after your first time, your body can be addicted. It’s scary. But I feel I can help.”
