Al Mello



Alfons Mello Tavares (January 31, 1906 – October 31, 1993) was an American Olympic and Professional boxer.

Early years
Tavares was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1906. As a youth, he worked in the mills, and took up boxing as a teenager, using the name Al Mello.

Career
After winning the National Amateur Welterweight Championship, as a 5'-7" 148 (welterweight) southpaw (67 inch reach) he qualified for the U.S. Olympic Boxing team. So, at the age of 18, he went to the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics.  His first fight, he defeated hometown favorite, Georges Doussot of France.   In the second round, Al Knocked out Norway's Edgar Christensen in the first few minutes of the fight.  Now in the quarterfinals, Al was eliminated in a second-round disqualification of the welterweight class, losing to Héctor Méndez, of Argentina, who went on to take Silver.

After the Olympics, Mello turned Pro in 1925, and earned the nickname, "the Stocky Portuguese Battler." Losing only two of his first twenty pro fights, and finished his six year career record of 42 wins, 10 losses, with 22KOs and only lost twice to a TKO, but never a KO.

Of Mello's 10 losses, 4 were for being disqualified for punching low. Some of his notable fights include wins over former welterweight champions, Vince Dundee and Joe Dundee, and he fought George Kid Lee four times, losing 3 of the 4.

Al retired after his final fight with Lou Brouillard at the Boston Garden on May 15, 1931. This was the only one of two fights where Al lost due to a technical knocked out, the other was just 23 months earlier in the same venue to his second fight with Gorilla Jones.

Personal life
Just one year later after turning pro, In April 1926, Al married Miss Mary Veronica Rupa of Lowell, and they went to Atlantic City and New York City for their honeymoon, before he bagan his training for a bout at Braves Field in June.

Al enlisted in the Army, during World War II, and was involved in the Italian Campaign. After retiring, Al opened a family restaurant "Al Mello's Restaurant" in his native Lowell, until his death in 1993, aged 87.