Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Even with a big win against Tim Elliott, UFC newcomer Brandon Royval remains disappointed with his performance.
UFC newcomer Brandon Royval made a strong statement in his debut on Saturday. The 27-year-old flyweight picked up a second-round submission win over former title challenger Tim Elliot.
But even with this huge feather in his cap, “Raw Dawg” was left disappointed in his performance, which he candidly told Daniel Cormier during the post-fight interview.
“I’m better than that. At the end of the day, I’m a striker, I put on exciting fights,” Royval said. That’s not gonna give me $50K, I’mma still have to go to work. I don’t know, I’m not impressed by myself.
“I’m trying to make money out here. I’m trying to change my life. I’m trying to not go to work tomorrow,” he continued, while trying to hold back emotions. “I have to go to work tomorrow, do you know that? I gotta go to work tomorrow because I didn’t put on a good performance today.”
For Royval, who works at a Juvenile Detention Center, being a full-time fighter and making a comfortable living out of it is the ultimate goal.
“I want to be able to quit my job, first and foremost,” he said in a virtual post-fight scrum (via TSN’s Aaron Bronsteter). “I think I’ve been saying it over and over again, but I want to make this my life. I want to be in the gym. I’m in the gym full-time, but I’m there full-time with like three hours of sleep and I’m working these jobs just so that I can make it and pay my mortgage and all this stuff.
“I want to make MMA my full-time life. I’ve put a lot of work in, I’ve been training since I was 16 years old. I just want to get out of this sport what I put in. I put in a lot of stuff, I put in a lot of love, and I just want to get that out of it.
“You want to see an exciting fight? Watch me stand up, watch me get comfortable in there.”
Royval did receive the extra $50,000 for Fight of the Night bonus, which should be a good start for him.