Flyweight’s Strangest Offensive Dynamo

Aggressive finisher, Brandon Royval, will get his chance at revenge opposite former champion, Brandon Moreno, this Saturday (Feb. 24, 2024) at UFC Mexico City inside CDMX Arena in Mexico City, Mexico.

“Raw Dog” is an athlete trying to make the most of his skill set like any other. Unlike most, however, Royval climbed the ranks and found great success by breaking the rules. For most of his career, Royval’s general tactic has been throwing out a ton of high-risk, high-reward offense in the hopes that he can outlast whatever counters come back his way.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

By and large, though, it works. Unfortunately, the cream of the crop occasionally have been able to capitalize on his aggression and turn it against him. As such, he’s in the midst of a rebrand, trying to adjust his style to that of a more patient distance kickboxer. There have been growing pains, noticeable in a disappointing title performance against Alexandre Pantoja.

Let’s take a closer look at his skill set:

Striking

Standing 5’9”, Royval is one of the lankier men at 125 pounds. The Southpaw makes that range work in his favor often, but he doesn’t always do so in conventional ways.

First and foremost, Royval is of course firing that left kick at every possible opportunity. He’s often throwing them naked, a habit which occasionally gets him in trouble with counter punches or takedowns (GIF). Still, there are few better weapons in mixed martial arts (MMA) than a strong left kick, which can wreak havoc on the lead leg, liver or skull of an Orthodox opponent.

Royval pairs this left kick mostly with an active right hand. The interesting thing here is that Royval’s jab doesn’t have a ton of weight behind it. The Coloradan athlete tends to paw with the jab and throw it more as an arm punch. His jab isn’t intended to do huge amounts of damage, but instead, it allows him to keep a bead on his opponent’s timing and movement.

Often, a flash of the jab is followed by that left leg punt. Sometimes, he’ll follow with a cross, but standard 1-2s down the middle are not really Royval’s game. He’s more likely to double and triple the jab or hook off it, just touching his foe with his lead hand to set up other offense like the power kick or knee from the left side.

What really makes Royval’s kickboxing special — what catches opponents off-guard — is how well he ties together punches, kicks, knees, and elbows. He is frequently putting together lengthy combos that mix all of them together, and those shots do damage when they sneak through the guard.

For example, let’s say Royval flicks the jab then follows with a left body kick, a classic Southpaw approach. Most would circle off afterwards, whereas Royval will often use his leg returning to stance to throw another right hook. If his opponent stays in place and takes the right hook on their guard, Royval will step forward hard into a left knee or left elbow. Suddenly, his opponent is back off in the face of all that offense, and Royval is following with a trio of light jabs, looking to line up the left kick again.

Rinse and repeat.

Another interesting angle to Royval’s attack is how often his power shots come in from the right side. Southpaw offense tends to revolve around the left cross and left kick, great weapons that play off each other well. That’s true for Royval too, but his ability to reset off missed kicks often sees him spinning into elbows/punches that come from the right side instead.

In addition, Royval really likes to attack with his right knee. To do so, he first has to take at least a small step with his left foot to square up his stance and load the right hip a bit. Usually, he’ll hide this step by feinting a left kick or actually throwing a left hand, both of which can allow him to slide the back foot forward and fire the knee up the middle. This is how he knocked out Matheus Nicolau (GIF), and it really throw off Kai Kara-France as well. Royval’s height makes it easier to raise the knee to the chin level of his opponents, which is scary!

Defensively, Royval is not a difficult man to hit. He throws himself into the fray willingly, and there’s a reason most fighters are not stringing together 10-strike combinations. Spectacular head movement isn’t what makes it possible for Royval; it’s toughness and boldness.

Wrestling

Royval’s wrestling is the weakest aspect of his game. He’s not an awful wrestler — truly bad wrestlers don’t take down Pantoja or win decisions against Rogerio Bontorin — but his striking and jiu-jitsu are far superior.

Since Royval isn’t usually looking for offensive takedowns, defense is the issue. His wildness on the feet and naked kicking tend to be the biggest issue in this regard. He stands tall and isn’t overly strong, meaning a well-timed double leg or caught kick is likely to just bowl him over.

Part of Royval’s more patient approach to kickboxing in his last few fights is due to an effort to improve his takedown defense. When Royval sees a takedown coming at distance, he tends to do good work in feeding his opponent onto the single leg, which is good strategy for a lankier fighter.

The rematch with Pantoja showed the real issue to this stylistic adjustment, however. Pantoja was physical and experienced enough to still wrestle through a patient “Raw Dog” defense, but Royval’s decreased activity also hurt his odds of scoring a finish.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Royval is a jiu-jitsu black belt with eight finishes via submission, including three strangles inside the Octagon.

There are a few aspects that really stand out about Royval’s grappling game. First and foremost, the man is an excellent scrambler. From both top and bottom position, he really excels at forcing his opponent to keep moving. The activity doesn’t stop!

From bottom position, Royval’s guard is extremely active. He rarely closes it, instead opting to shift for hard angles from his back. Much of the time, he’s looking to isolate an arm and attack the omoplata. Though he did successfully sweep Kara-France with an omoplata in the first round of their fight, he’ll also build off the threat of that submission. If his opponent pulls away to escape the omoplata, Royval will invert and attack a leg. As his opponent drives back into him to prevent the leg entanglement, Royval will throw his legs up to attack the triangle/armbar in return (GIF).

It’s a similar strategy to Roman Dolidze.

The guillotine has proven a serious weapon for Royval, accounting for two of his UFC submissions. What’s interesting is that both finishes were different styles of guillotine! Against Kara-France, Royval’s pressure and varied offense forced an uncomfortable double leg from the Kiwi. Rather than defend, he immediately wrapped the neck in an old-school arm-in guillotine, jumping full guard. Sitting up into the strangle, Royval finished the choke in correct fashion (GIF).

Rewatching Royval’s quick finish over Matt Schnell, it’s actually a bit funny how badly Schnell was kicking Royval’s ass prior to the guillotine. Royval didn’t find a bit of success, getting knocked down, mounted, and beaten up in the opening two minutes. Then, Schnell fell off top position going for a choke. When he tried to wrestle up, Royval jumped a guillotine and finished him almost instantly! Schnell went from complete control to tapping in 10 seconds.

As for the guillotine itself, Royval did well to drive into Schnell before jumping guard, allowing a deeper grip on the neck. Once again, he initially had an arm-in guillotine grip. However, since his choke arm was so deep, Royval was able to release that grip and squeeze with just one arm, using the other hand to merely control Schnell’s arm and prevent him from fighting hands. He switched that non-choke arm to helping apply pressure to the squeeze at the last-second, but Schnell was already tapping.

Conclusion

Royval is a really offensively potent opportunist, able to create a finish suddenly and from thin air. However, he’s faced with one of the toughest and most durable men at Flyweight, and Moreno has fewer of the defensive openings in his game. It’s a difficult style match up for Royval, who will likely need the perfect connection of knee or elbow to score the upset.

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Andrew Richardson, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt, is a professional fighter who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. In addition to learning alongside world-class talent, Andrew has scouted opponents and developed winning strategies for several of the sport’s most elite fighters.

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