Last week, Brandon “Raw Dawg” Royval got a life-changing call from his manager Jason House of the Iridium Sports Agency. As reported this morning, the Factory X flyweight will be making his UFC debut on May 30 against the one-time title contender current #11 flyweight Tim Elliott.

Royval, a Denver native, was already in camp preparing for a fight on Dana White’s Contender Series in June, and despite abnormal circumstances, he is prepared to deliver a must-see performance as per his normal outings in the cage.

He is making his promotional debut at 27-years-old after capturing the LFA flyweight title in record-breaking fashion last November. His 0:23 first round submission via armbar was nothing short of an electric finish to a sequence that started with a flying knee.

The finish marked his ninth finish in ten wins. Eight of his nine finishes occurred in the first round, with four of the eight being stopped inside of the first minute of that first round.

On Saturday night, Royval gets the opportunity to bring his skills to the big stage against fan-friendly veteran Tim Elliott. The 33-year-old first made the walk to the UFC octagon back in 2012 where he went 3-3 before getting cut. Elliot proceeded to go on a seven fight winning streak, including his time on The Ultimate Fighter, en route to getting back into the UFC and earning a title shot against Demetrious Johnson. 

Since falling short of UFC gold, Elliott has traded wins and losses, but he never has a “boring” fight. Even after getting cracked in the first round and narrowly avoiding being TKO’d, Elliott was able to push through the damage all the way through to the final bell putting on a top ten fight of the year performance so far. 

With Royval’s relentless pace and ability to threaten from any position along with Elliott’s gritty style, fans can be sure that this will be a flyweight fight that will be filled with action. It is also worth noting that Royval and Elliott have spent a small amount of time training together in the past, so it will be interesting to see if this plays a role at all. 

The prelim coverage kicks off at 4 p.m. MDT on ESPN/ESPN+. Royval versus Elliot is scheduled to be the third fight of the night. 

-Jordan Kurtz is a founding member of Comments From The Peanut Gallery and The MMA Plug and can be followed on Instagram at @CommentsFromThePeanutGallery and @TheMMAPlug303