2024 National Champion Richard Figueroa Transferring to Oklahoma State

David Taylor is brining a national champion to Stillwater.

Arizona State transfer Richard Figueroa, who won a 125-pound title in 2024, announced Monday that he is headed to Oklahoma State. Much of the talk is that Figueroa will jump up to 133 pounds for the Cowboys. He should have one year of eligibility remaining.

 

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Figueroa went 51-9 in four years with the Sun Devils, including a 17-4 record this past season.

He was the No. 1 seed at the Big 12 Championships this year but was upset in the quarterfinal before battling back to a third-place finish, a run that included a pair of pins. He was the 5 seed at NCAAs but went 1-2.

His NCAA title run in 2024 saw Figueroa beat top-seeded Braeden Davis (Penn State) and 3 seed Drake Ayala (Iowa). Both of those guys bumped up to 133 for the 2024-25 season, where Ayala finished second at NCAAs and Davis finished fifth.

Out of Sanger, California, Figueroa was the No. 2 recruit in the 2021 class, per Willie Saylor. Figueroa suffered only two losses during his high school career. He was a three-time state champion in California.

The 133-pound weight class was the only division the Cowboys didn’t have an NCAA qualifier at in Taylor’s first season. Reece Witcraft and Cael Hughes contested the weight for much of the year. Witcraft is out of eligibility, while Hughes might be headed up in weight. Figueroa’s addition to the room also give NCAA runner-up Troy Spratley another high-level training partner.

Figueroa is the fifth wrestler Taylor has picked up out of the portal this offseason and just the second to come from somewhere other than Penn State. He joins Casey Swiderski (Iowa State), Alex Facundo (Penn State), Gary Steen (Penn State) and Zack Ryder (Penn State) as OSU portal pledges.