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Brandon Royval knew after spending five minutes in the cage with Alexandre Pantoja that he was about to add another win to his UFC résumé.
Back in August 2021, after a few crazy scrambles and exchanges, Royval saw a look in Pantoja’s eye that told him the Brazilian flyweight was already sucking wind and running low on gas before the second round had even started. As he stared across the cage at his opponent, Royval felt an overwhelming sense of victory — and that lasted until Pantoja latched onto a rear-naked choke less than two minutes later, ending their first fight.
As he prepares for their rematch with the flyweight title on the line in UFC 296’s co-main event, Royval can look back now and realize exactly where he went wrong.
“When I went out for that second round, I thought I had him all but finished,” Royval told MMA Fighting. “I remember looking across the way and feeling fine, and I prepared really well for that fight. I had such a hard training camp and I worked my ass off for that fight. I remember looking at him like, ‘This dude is done.’ I was almost celebrating in my head.
“I had him all but finished, and even when the start of the second round happened, he looked so terrible. There was so much momentum going my way and I felt like, ‘This is perfect, this is over.’”
A frantic first round saw Pantoja shoot for a takedown almost immediately, with Royval defending throughout the grappling exchange and then threaten with his own submissions. After eventually getting back to his feet, Pantoja caught Royval with a glancing blow that immediately made the American start wiping at his eye.
There was no pause in the action, and although Royval knows he suffered another eye poke in the second round that the referee didn’t acknowledge, it turns out that wasn’t actually what damaged him most. Instead, it was that punch from Pantoja in the opening stanza which entirely altered the course of the fight.
“You know what actually happened, I don’t think I’ve ever aired this publicly — he broke my orbital,” Royval revealed. “I did get eye poked really badly, but I think that was in the opposite eye. But if you’ve ever broke your orbital, it’s super blurry to see and all that stuff.
“I think one of those punches he broke my orbital, and I kept thinking I can’t see because he poked me in the eye. Give all the credit to Pantoja because not only did he break my orbital, I know he broke Alex Perez’s orbital, and I’m pretty sure he broke Brandon Moreno’s in one of their fights. That fool hits hard.”
The injury to his orbital bone left Royval blinking and unable to see clearly throughout the rest of the fight. It wasn’t until afterward that he finally figured out what happened, and it took some time before his vision actually returned to normal.
“I was super confused on why I couldn’t see,” Royval said. “I thought it was more of, I got poked, but it was actually my orbital. I was seeing blurry for the next week after that.”
While the broken orbital undoubtedly affected him, Royval still felt confident that he could put Pantoja away, especially with his foe seemingly fading as the second round started.
Royval began putting together his combinations and felt as if it was only a matter of time before he found the finish. In his rush to put his oppoent away, Royval’s aggression allowed Pantoja to eventually jump on his back and drag the fight down to the canvas again.
From there, Pantoja advanced his position and locked in the fight-ending rear-naked choke.
Looking back now, Royval takes full responsibility for his mistakes.
“I feel like I rushed the finish and I had 15 minutes to go play with my food,” Royval explained. “I have 25 minutes to finish my food in this fight, and I don’t need to finish it right off the bat. I’ve had a lot of first-round finishes and it’s easy to feel like you need to finish it on the spot, but at that time, in that given moment, it was like, slow down.
“I could have played with my food there and got a spectacular finish, but I rushed it, put myself in a bad scenario and kind of watched the fight slip out of my hands.”
As difficult as it was to deal with that loss, Royval learned a valuable lesson that helped him make the necessary adjustments so he wouldn’t do the same thing again.
Royval hasn’t tasted defeat since that 2021 loss, and his past three wins have allowed the 31-year-old flyweight to display patience in his fights while still showcasing the same level of brutality that’s allowed him to finish 13 of his 15 wins by either knockout or submission.
“I think there’s a narrative about me that I’m a wild man, I’m the crazy man in the octagon,” Royval said. “And it’s like, that’s not true anymore. That’s not true at all. I think I can show a different side of me and I also just think I can surprise everybody with who I am as a person and who I am as a fighter. I can go there, I can go 100 miles per hour, I can create chaos and I can thrive there, and I always thrive there.
“In a bar fight, all that stuff, I’m there, I’m perfect. That’s where I thrive the most. But I don’t need to fight like that anymore.”
Royval also watched how other top fighters and UFC champions took their time and methodically broke down opponents. While his last two fights have still ended in first-round finishes, Royval says he’s been much smarter with his approach and he expects that to pay dividends as he attempts to become a UFC champion for the first time in his career.
“You don’t see [Israel Adesanya] going in there and rushing anything,” Royval said. “He takes his sweet time and plays with his food over and over again. I feel like I can do that. Specifically in this Pantoja fight, not only can I go out there and be smart and technical, but I can hand him the rope to go hang himself. I very much feel like that.
“In this situation, I have the tools to beat him. I can beat him in a bar fight, I can beat him in there, but I don’t even need to go that point. That’s option four or option three. I don’t need to make that option A anymore.”
As much as Royval touts the changes to his game, he feels as if Pantoja hasn’t really evolved because what worked for the Brazilian two years ago is still working and led him to the title.
The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” model might work for Pantoja, but Royval refuses to fall into that same trap of predictability, especially in a rematch where he’s trying to avenge a past loss while also becoming a UFC champion for the first time in his career.
“He’s obviously looked good in his fights and he’s been getting the job done, but I don’t think he’s going to change anything,” Royval said. “I’ve seen him do the same thing in every fight he’s ever had.
“The moment the bell rings, he just runs across the cage and goes off. He looks for the takedown or he looks for a bomb, but usually looks for the takedown. I would be dumb to not address that right away. I feel like I’ve made so many adaptations and changes in my camp and changes to who I am as fighter since I started in the UFC, to the point where I’m at now. I’m way more sophisticated than this guy. I’m way too smooth for this. I’m way too fast for him. I’m way too everything.”
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