A highly-rated trainer has slammed the treatment of a newly-crowned world champion just hours before the bell rang in his title fight last weekend.
American’s Brandon Figueroa became a world champion for the third time on Saturday night when he stopped Britain’s Nick Ball in the 12th and final round of their clash at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool.
The 29-year-old from Texas put on an impressive display against the previously unbeaten Brit to hand him the first defeat of his professional career and capture the WBA world featherweight title.
Figueroa previously held the WBC featherweight crown but was beaten by countryman Stephen Fulton in his first title defence back in February of 2025.
Speaking to Seconds Out, Figueroa’s coach Manny Robles revealed details of the poor treatment that his fighter had to deal with shortly before his showdown with Ball as he claims the team ‘felt disrespected’ because of the events that played out.
“Listen, I’m going to put it out there. The referee did a horrible job. Coming in we knew they weren’t going to do us any favours. We knew that. The stuff that went on in the locker room prior to the fight with the whole hand wraps, we show up to the venue and Nick Ball’s got his hands wrapped already without our supervision and you can’t do that.
“Especially when it’s a main event fight and we talked about this at the fighters meeting, and the commission’s like: ‘There’s nothing we can do.’ I called the WBA supervisor, he didn’t do anything. We felt disrespected. Obviously it got fixed. Listen, it’s a long story but anyway, that’s the type of stuff we had to deal with.”
Figueroa has received plaudits for his performance against Ball and has now been personally invited to make the first defence of his world title on the undercard of Canelo Alvarez’s return to the ring this September.
