"I don't know what happened. I was giving him great work. I was putting the pressure on him. I was doing the Manny Pacquiao movements. I was giving him angles. I wasn't slacking off. I'm not a slacker. Everybody knows. I don't know what happened. I got sent home not knowing why I got sent home," stated jr. welterweight Frankie "Gato" Figueroa as he talked about his recent release from the training camp of WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto. Having worked with Cotto in the past, Figueroa was brought in as a sparring partner last week to help him prepare for his highly-anticipated showdown with Manny Pacquiao.
"To be honest Ben, I don't know what happened. You know, everybody knows how I get down. I spar very well. I take my sparring seriously. I'm like 6-0 as a chief sparring partner," Figueroa continued, "I don't play with the guys I spar with, you know? In the ring, I throw volume punches. In the ring, I do a lot of movement, I do a lot of bouncing, I do what I do best and that's prepare you for your fight. For me to get sent home, I don't know why."
The news came as a shock to Figueroa, who assumed he was doing a good job judging from the feedback he was getting in camp. Recalling the incident, Figueroa commented, "Everybody enjoyed me, his trainers, everybody liked me man. Every single body Ben. Everybody. Everybody likes me...All I know was I was doing my thing. Everybody was proud. Everyone was impressed. I was the one shining as a sparring partner, putting the pressure in, putting the bounces in, punching and walking like Pacquiao...after we sparred, I go home, I go for a run because I'm getting ready for my fight, I get a call that I'm getting sent home. I'm saying, 'For what? Why?' They say, 'Oh, we don't know why. We don't know the details.'"
After sparring with champions like Shane Mosley, Andre Berto, Ricky Hatton and even Cotto in the past, this was the first time that Figueroa had ever been asked to leave a training camp. "I've sparred with many world champions and I've never been sent home. If anything, they've praised me. You can ask Tony Morgan, the trainer of Berto. You can ask Berto. I mimic the fighters very well. I do a little bit of me, but I will mimic the fighters very well," he added, "I gave him [Cotto] the best ability that I can. I was giving him angles, I was giving him punch volume; I mean, of course not as much as Pacquiao, but damn near."
Regardless of the reason, it's odd that Team Cotto would send home their most experienced sparring partner who, according to him, was doing what he was brought in to do only to be asked to leave without given a reason why. It raises some serious concerns about Cotto's preparations leading up to the bout, especially considering that promoter Bob Arum recently commented, "he still has work to do," after witnessing one of Cotto's sparring sessions.
Figueroa has now returned home where he continues to train for his own upcoming November 4th clash with Rashad Holloway in the co-main event on ESPN Wednesday Night Fights.
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