Brandon Royval is the spare tire for the UFC flyweight title fight. He told Ariel Helwani he’ll serve as the backup for Joshua Van vs. Manel Kape, a bout Championship Rounds reported is headed for UFC 336 in January.
Royval didn’t pretend it was a promotion. “I’m the backup... At least it keeps me in the title picture for a little bit, and it gets me studying the champion and the contender for the championship,” he said.
He was also clear about what the UFC has and hasn’t told him. “They haven’t told me anything specific, just that I’m the backup,” Royval said, adding that he hopes the company sees it the same way he does: next man up.
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Van walks in as the current champion and Kape as the next scheduled challenger, per Cageside Press. Kape carries real thunder into the matchup. According to MMA Junkie’s pre-event research, his four-fight UFC knockout streak is tied with welterweight Uros Medic for the longest among active fighters on the roster. The two title combatants also share a common data point in Bruno Silva, who has losses to both Van and Kape on a UFC record that Cageside lists at 5-6 with one no contest.
Royval and Van have history of their own, and Royval brought it up without being asked twice. “I think that the Van fight will always be on the table for me just because how good of a fight it was, and we broke a lot of records or whatever it is,” he said. That “or whatever it is” is my favorite part. Guy can’t remember which records, only that the fight was good enough to keep the door open.
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The title fight gets its first public airing soon. Championship Rounds reported a joint UFC 335 and UFC 336 press conference for this Friday, with Van and Kape sharing the dais alongside Charles Oliveira, Diego Lopes, Alex Pereira, Sergei Pavlovich, Carlos Prates and Michael Morales.
Royval had a busy media day. In a separate clip Helwani posted, he and Alex Hernandez reacted to footage of Usman Nurmagomedov and his team confronting Merab Dvalishvili, and Royval’s takeaway was loyalty. “The dude that he was with held it down, bro. It was like 10 on 2,” he said.
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My take: backup duty is the worst job in the sport and occasionally the most valuable. You cut weight like you’re fighting, you study two guys you may never face, and most of the time you go home with a per diem and a sore stomach. But Royval is the rare backup with a ready-made story attached, a prior Van fight he insists was record-setting, and a style the UFC clearly trusts on short notice. If Kape’s knockout streak gets to five in January, Royval’s film study on the Portuguese puncher becomes his homework for the next booking. If Van holds, the rematch pitch writes itself. Either way, his name is on the card in pencil, and the first chance to hear Van and Kape talk about it comes Friday, Nov. 13.
