“There’s not enough fighters and a lot of athletes out there,” he said before putting an addendum to that statement. “Maybe not the flyweight division. I think in the flyweight division, we have to keep things exciting because the division almost got cut already, so I think they do a really good job of keeping the exciting flyweights in the UFC, for the most part.”
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The way Royval sees it, Schnell is a member of that “most part” group, and it’s why when “Danger” lost a fight with Alex Perez for the umpteenth time before the two could even throw hands, Royval raised his hand immediately.
“I was pretty much right next to (UFC matchmaker) Mick Maynard when it happened,” said Royval of seeing the latest Schnell-Perez fight scrapped. “We were at the same event, so I ran into him, and I was like, ‘I’ll take that fight ASAP.’ I was hoping for it to be that next month. I want to get more experience under my belt, I want to earn my way up and I want to fight in front of a crowd, and I didn’t like the way that Bontorin fight went, so I just wanted to get that sour taste out of my mouth as quick as possible.”
Oddly enough (or maybe not so odd in a world that has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic for the last two-plus years), UFC 274 will mark Royval’s first UFC fight to take place in a packed arena.
“This is a dream come true for me,” he said. It’s also an opportunity to hear a crowd that would have been standing and cheering for him in his previous bouts, particularly his Fight of the Night wins over Tim Elliott and Kai Kara-France. This time around, he has another willing dance partner, but on a card filled with some of the most exciting fighters to ever grace the Octagon, getting another bonus might be a tall order, right?
Wrong.
