{"id":815457,"date":"2026-07-22T00:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815457\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:38:09","slug":"brandon-royval-says-ufc-cares-about-followers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815457\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Royval Says UFC Cares About Followers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It was just the latest all-action performance from \u201cRaw Dawg.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Still, despite being one of the most exciting Flyweights on the roster, it took Royval eight fights inside the promotion before he finally landed a UFC main event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Well, according to Royval, he got passed over because of his social media following.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cHaving followers is such a big deal,\u201d Royval told Ariel Helwani today. \u201cI remember they didn\u2019t book me for a main event and their reasoning was \u2014 I think it was Alexa Grasso or whoever they boosted in front of me \u2014 they were like, \u2018She has way more followers than you.\u2019 Askar Askarov pulled out of the fight so it didn\u2019t matter, but I was pissed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">And that was not the only time Royval felt overlooked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In his next outing, Royval was buried on the prelims at UFC Kansas City despite being the second-highest-ranked fighter on the card. After his incredible knockout win, he shouted, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2023\/4\/16\/23685006\/brandon-royval-prelims-anymore-i-should-never-be-in-a-fucking-prelim-ufc-kansas-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I should never be on a f\u2014king prelims again<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">UFC CEO Dana White actually agreed with him afterward, admitting that he and the matchmakers \u201cscrewed up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">He has since landed three UFC main events and two spots on major numbered-event main cards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">So, maybe the followers helped.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Royval currently sits at 149,000 followers on Instagram, and after another \u201cFight of the Night\u201d war at UFC 329, the promotion clearly knows what it has.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">A ranked Flyweight contender, a reliable action fighter, and apparently, enough followers to finally get the good slots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was just the latest all-action performance from \u201cRaw Dawg.\u201d Still, despite being one of the most exciting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,179146,355513],"class_list":["post-815457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-mma-social-media-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}