The eighth non-title
Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight headliner will play
out in October.
At the UFC 304 weigh-in show last Friday, the promotion let slip
during the broadcast that Brandon
Royval (16-7) and Tatsuro
Taira (16-0) were going to collide in the future. On Thursday,
both Royval
and
MMA Junkie confirmed that this contest would serve as the main
event for the
UFC Fight Night card on Oct. 12. The flyweights will come to
blows at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, with Royval expecting the fight
to be “most likely a title eliminator,” while remarking that he had
planned on facing Amir Albazi
instead.
Royval bounced back from a championship defeat to Alexandre
Pantoja in December by outhustling Brandon
Moreno in February. Royval picked up a close split decision,
avenging a contentious last-second knockout loss to the former
champ in 2020. Before falling short to Pantoja, Royval rattled off
a decision over Rogerio
Bontorin followed by first-round finishes over Matt
Schnell and Matheus
Nicolau to earn his crack at gold.
Japan’s Taira has not suffered a loss as a professional, with the
24-year-old prevailing in all six of his Octagon encounters to
date. Taira introduced himself in 2022 by snagging a decision over
Carlos
Candelario, and within the next year he tapped C.J. Vergara
and Jesus
Santos Aguilar to put himself on the flyweight radar. A pair of
knockouts over Carlos
Hernandez and Alex
Perez—the latter due to an injury—set the youngster on a path
towards the belt.
The currently unnumbered UFC Fight Night card on Oct. 12 will be
held at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Royval vs. Taira joins recently
announced matchups of Cory
McKenna vs. Polyana
Viana at strawweight and a rebooked middleweight affair of
Brad
Tavares vs. Jun Yong
Park. Other matches up the lineup include a bantamweight battle
pitting Cody
Garbrandt against Miles Johns
and a middleweight contest as Abdul
Razak Alhassan faces Josh Fremd.