UFC 317 Preview and Prediction: Brandon Royval
Tomorrow night on the main card of UFC 317, we are going to see an extremely exciting fight in the flyweight division. Former title challenger Brandon Royval (17-7) will be taking one the most exciting prospect in the flyweight division in Joshua Van (14-2).
This was not Royval's original fight. Royval was supposed to have a title eliminator against Manel Kape, but Kape had to pull out of the fight due to injury. When Kape fell out, Van stepped in. Van just dominated and stopped Bruno Silva at UFC 316 a few weeks ago. Since he was fresh after the fight, he got the call to step in and he took it. Van has won four in a row and has the opportunity to jump right into title contention.
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That said, going from Bruno Silva to Brandon Royval is a huge jump, no disrespect to Silva. Brandon Royval since 2019 is 9-3 inside the octagon. Two of those losses came against flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja. The other loss was a loss to Brandon Moreno where Royval injured his shoulder. A loss that he got back with a decision win over Moreno last February. Royval also has a second round finish over tomorrow night's challenger Kai Kara-France during that stretch.
UFC 317 Prediction
When the odds of this fight were first released, Van was better than -200 which is insane to me. Again, Brandon Royval is the number one contender in the division for a reason. The only man who has truly beaten him is the champion while Royval has been taking out all the other top UFC flyweight contenders. Van was just stopped by Charles Johnson last July.
I absolutely love Joshua Van and I believe that he's going to be a future flyweight champion, however, he's 23-years-old and there's plenty of time for him to get there. I really admire him for jumping at this opportunity, but I think Royval is just going to be too much for him.
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I think Royval will control the pace and his ability to mix in his striking and scramble in the grappling exchanges is really going to help here. I think this is going to be a wild fight and I see Royval getting a submission win at UFC 317. I think there will be some form of a grappling exchange that will lead to a Royval guillotine. That said, if Van pulls this off, the sky is the limit for the young man and he'll be next for the flyweight champion.
Prediction: Brandon Royval by Submission
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