Boyd "Rainmaker" Melson (born October 16, 1981) is a retired American light middleweight boxer.
As an amateur, Melson won the 48th World Military Boxing Championship gold medal in the weight class, and was a three-time United States Army 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. 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 and his efforts have been profiled on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated, and Yahoo!, 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 survivors from Poland. He said: "My grandfather, while being put onto a train en route to a death camp, 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 on his trunks. Melson grew up primarily in Brooklyn, New York.
Melson graduated from West Point in 2003 with a psychology degree, and a minor in nuclear engineering. He also graduated as a lieutenant, and was promoted to captain three years later. He earned an MBA in business administration at Touro College.
Army champion and world military champion
Melson started boxing in National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA) competition while he was a cadet at West Point. He was picked for the US Army World Class Athlete Program, and sent to Fort Carson, Colorado.
Melson was a four-time United States Army 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 world champion Joey Gamache 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 in the 69 kg. weight class by defeating Elshod Rasulov of Uzbekistan at Fort Huachuca, Arizona (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 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.