By Miguel Rivera
Eddy Reynoso, the trainer of Mexican superstar Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, is frustrated with the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) after his boxer failed to even make the short-list for Fighter of The Year.
And Reynoso was angered that he personally failed to receive any consideration for Trainer of The Year.
The Mexican coach considered the two scenarios a lack of respect for the level of work conducted by himself and Canelo in 2018.
Canelo won a twelve round majority decision over Gennady Golovkin to capture the WBC, WBA middleweight titles in September. And then he returned in December to capture the WBA "regular" super middleweight title with a three round blowout of Rocky Fielding.
But Canelo had his share of downsides in the year as well. A planned return for May was pushed back when he tested positive for banned substance and received a six month suspension.
And the Fielding win was highly criticized, because Callum Smith is universally recognized as the real WBA champion of the weight class - and Smith also holds a first round knockout of Fielding.
Reynoso believes his fighter did more than enough to warrant consideration for the award. And he believes his level of work as a trainer should have been recognized as well.
The nominees for Fighter of The Year were: Oleksandr Usyk (16-0, 12 Kos), Vasiliy Lomachenko (12-1, 9 Kos), Maurice Hooker (25-0-3, 17 Kos), Mikey García (39-0, 30 Kos) and Terence Crawford (34-0, 25 Kos).
And the nominees for Trainer of The Year were: Anatoly Lomachenko, Jay Deas, Robert Garcia and Derrick James.
"We really do not know what's going on, you get confused about how the American press is handled. They did not put Saul on the short list of Fighter of the Year, and for me it is a lack of respect because we won to the fullest extent of the word in his respective field, we beat the best pound for pound fighter...that was Gennady Golovkin," Reynoso said to Diego Martinez.
"We also beat a champion (Rocky Fielding), we are not fighting with just any ordinary fighter. We won two world titles, and to not take our boxer into account is a total lack of respect. But in the end, what interests us is that people left happy and we continue to advance as a team."