Brandon Royval is ready for another big name.
‘Raw Dawg’ will make his next walk to the Octagon this Saturday night at UFC 319 in Chicago. However, it won’t be to fight. Instead, ‘Raw Dawg’ will be in the corner of his teammate and good friend, Alexander Hernandez, who is set to square off with submission specialist Chase Hooper.
Speaking with James Lynch in a MiddleEasy exclusive interview, Royval offered some insight into how his fight week differs when cornering someone compared to actually stepping inside the cage.
“I don’t think I get nervous during fight week, but when it’s fight time, I’m way more nervous for my cornering,” Royval revealed. “You don’t have any control. That’s your best friend in there fighting, and I get so scared. I don’t give a sh*t what happens to me. I kinda go balls to the wall no matter what, but for Alex, I’m just concerned.”
Despite the nerves, Royval is confident that ‘The Great Ape’ will come out on top against the streaking Hooper.
“[Camp] went super well,” Royval added. “He did amazing, and I think we have a really good recipe on how we’re going to destroy Chase Hooper. I think the game plan is always obvious when going against Hooper, but I think we have the right person to do it.”
Going into his 16th promotional fight, Hernandez is 8-7 inside the Octagon and rides into ‘Chi-Town’ with back-to-back wins over Austin Hubbard and Kurt Holobaugh in his last two outings.
Royval’s last turn on MMA’s biggest stage delivered a Fight of the Year contender against surging flyweight sensation Joshua Van at UFC 317 in June.
‘Raw Dawg’ ultimately came up short on the scorecards, though the fight itself will still be remembered by many as one of Royval’s greatest career highlights.
“I’m not gonna lie, I had fun,” Royval said of his five-round war with Van. “There’s cool stuff to take [away] from it. To be 100 percent honest, I haven’t watched the fight back. I’m still bitter over it, pretty pissed off over how I fought.
“I get tagged in highlights every day, but it is what it is. Most of it’s me getting dropped in the last 10 seconds. Don’t care to see that much, but when I went back to training, the first week was just working on sh*t that my coach saw [in the fight] and stuff we have to work on. That’s kinda how it’s been. I’ll let him clean up some things, but as far as me watching it, I don’t want to watch me fighting sloppy.
“I know I fought pretty sloppy. More than anything, I just want to get back at it.”
🤯 Joshua Van and Brandon Royval delivered one of the greatest fights in UFC history at #UFC317. 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/Dj2FKsPRDH
— Superbeast MMA (@SuperbeastCraig) June 29, 2025
With ample five-round experience, Royval opted to coast through much of the first five minutes of the fight, saving his gas tank for what would become a war of attrition in the later rounds. Royval believes it’s this strategy—and getting dropped in the final moments of the fight—that ultimately cost him the victory.
“The first round, I didn’t win that for sure,” Royval said. “I remember walking to the corner thinking I need to wake up a little bit. I’ve fought a lot of five-round fights these last two years so, five-round fights I’m a little more used to. That first round you can kind of get away with bullsh*tting. The three-round fights, you can’t do that, but I felt like I needed to turn it around.
“I felt like the second round was definitely mine, probably up to three-and-a-half to four minutes in, I was winning it … But like I said, I haven’t watched back the fight. According to people around me, they think I would have won if I didn’t get dropped in the last 10 seconds. Who knows. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.”
Frustrated by the loss, Brandon Royval revealed that he was desperately trying to book another fight as early as the UFC’s annual Mexican Independence Day celebration on September 6.
“I was trying to fight the next month,” he revealed. “I was trying to call out [Brandon] Moreno for Noche UFC, but I tore my MCL the first f*cking round of that fight, so it didn’t really work out the way I’d hope. When I went back to training that first week, I was like, I want to fight immediately. I f*cking hate this feeling. I hate losing. I hate all that. I want to get that out of my mouth, and I think Moreno is the biggest star.
“He passed me up in the rankings, so Moreno is higher than me right now, so f*ck bro, if I can fight ahead, that would be ideal, and Moreno really has no one else to fight.”
Fortunately, Royval isn’t looking at a significant amount of time on the shelf, but it will keep him from competing at next month’s Noche UFC card in San Antonio. Instead, ‘Raw Dawg’ is eyeing a potential return to the Octagon in November, but anytime before the end of 2025 would be ideal for the one-time flyweight title challenger.
Brandon Royval Wants to Throw Hands with Kyoji Horiguchi
Another name towards the top of Royval’s list of potential opponents is former Bellator and RIZIN champion Kyoji Horiguchi.
“Horiguchi would be f*cking sick,” Royval said. “I want Horiguchi, I want Manel Kape. I want the best fights. None of these little wrestlers who are in the division right now are that exciting to me. That doesn’t wake me up in the morning and f*cking scare me completely.
“Amir Albazi is high in the rankings, but that sh*t doesn’t really excite me. But a Horiguchi, Manel Kape, or even Moreno—even though we’ve fought a handful of times—those fights are exciting.”
After walking away from the UFC in 2016 following an impressive 7-1 run, Horiguchi re-signed with the promotion in March, vacating his RIZIN flyweight title in the process.
Check out the full exclusive interview below:
