By Miguel Rivera
Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. does not view WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko as the 2016 Fight of The Year.
He believes the award should go to WBO/WBC junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford or IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight king Gennady Golovkin.
Several outlets, including ESPN Deportes, have selected Lomachenko as their Fighter of The Year. BoxingScene.com selected Carl Frampton as the Fighter of The Year of 2016.
Lomachenko, a two-time Olympic gold medal winner, became a two-division world champion when he knocked out Rocky Martinez in the first half of the year, and then closed the year out with a stoppage of former champion Nicholas Walters.
Golovkin fought twice in 2016, with an easy knockout of mandatory challenger Dominic Wade and then stopped IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook in five rounds.
Crawford saw action three times, including a knockout of Hanky Lundy in January, then headlining his first pay-per-view with a dominating decision win over Viktor Postol to unify the WBC/WBO titles at 140, and then closed the year out with a dominating stoppage of John Molina in December.
For Chavez Sr. - Crawford or Golovkin were ahead of the pack to get the FOTY honor.
"With all due respect [Lomachenko] was not my Fighter of The Year. For me it would have been Terence Crawford or Gennady Golovkin, one of the two," Chavez Sr. said.
"Abner [Mares] if you know boxing. Terence Crawford should have been Fighter of The Year, not Lomachenko. Why [should it be Lomachenko]? Because he beat Rocky Martinez? Who is Rocky Martinez, please tell me?"