Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s coach, Eddy Reynoso, has openly expressed his frustration with the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA), because his superstar was not included in the short list for the Fighter of the Year.
The Mexican coach considered the two scenarios a blatant disrespect considering all the efforts that Canelo and himself provided during the year 2018.
Canelo won a 12-round majority decision over Gennady “GGG” Golovkin capturing WBC titles, WBA middleweight, in September. And then, the Mexican star returned to the ring, in December, to appropriate the WBA “Regular” super middleweight by stopping the British boxer Rocky Fielding in the third round.
But Canelo has gone through a dark period during the year 2018. His planned return to May had to be banned when he tested positive for a banned substance. He was then forced to serve a six-month suspension.
Nevertheless, Reynoso believes that his fighter had done more than enough to deserve a consideration for this honor. And he believes his hard work as a coach should have been equally recognized.
The nominees as Fighter of the Year were: Oleksandr Usyk (16-0-0, 12 KOs), Vasyl Lomachenko (12-1-0, 9 KOs), Maurice Hooker (25-0-3, 17 KOs) , Mikey Garcia (39-0-0, 30 KOs), and Terence Crawford (34-0-0, 25 KOs).
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez stops Rocky Fielding in the third round. (Source:www.deverpost.com)
And the nominees for Coach of the Year were: Anatoly Lomachenko, Jay Deas, Robert Garcia, and Derrick James.
“We really do not know what happened. There is enough to be confused about how the American press is managed. They did not put Saul on the short list of Fighter of the Year, and for me it’s a blatant disrespect because we beat the best pound-for-pound fighter Gennady Golovkin” Reynoso said.
“We also beat another champion (Rocky Fielding) … we do not just fight ordinary fighters. We won two world titles and the fact of not taking our boxer into account is a total lack of respect. But in the end … what interests us the most is that people are happy and we will continue to move in the right direction as a team.” he added.
Canelo signed the richest contract in the history of sports with a record-breaking 11-fight deal with streaming service DAZN last year.
