What’s up guys, today I’ll be breaking down the title picture in the Men’s Flyweight Division of the UFC. This is an interesting one because there’s plenty of new talent at the top of the rankings in this weight class and its as competitive as ever at 125 pounds. Needless to say this is going to be an interesting one.

Flyweight is a tricky one because I don’t think any of the contenders have that great of a case for the next title shot right now compared to the rest of the top challengers. In other words, from the rankings of #1 – #5, I see a lot of these fighters to be relatively on the same level as one another. While this has made the men’s flyweight division as exciting as ever lately, it makes it quite difficult to  pick the next title challenger that I want to see to be honest, but needless to say I tried my best with this one.

So first things first, on normal terms, I’d say that Brandon Moreno would deserve a rematch after losing his belt in such a close split decision to Pantoja in July. however, there’s just one big problem with giving the title shot to Moreno, being that it would be his second quadrilogy in the UFC, and he has already gone 0-3 against Pantoja. Now we know that didn’t stop the UFC before from his quadrilogy with Davison Figueredo, but in my opinion 4 fights against the same opponent is not ideal in pretty much any case because many fans want to see new matchups for a relatively fan friendly fighter in Brandon Moreno. He could still be a big draw for the UFC as something like a fight night headliner, even outside of the title picture. 

So moving on, while Daveison Figueredo would be an interesting matchup for Pantoja, it’s hard to justify giving him another title shot after just coming off of losing the belt to Moreno in January, so he probably needs one more win before he’s back in the title picture. Now its been in question for a while now whether Figueredo is going to move up in weight class. He has insisted that he would over the summer but then booked a fight with Manel Kape that was supposed to be on UFC 290 but was cancelled after Figueredo was not yet medically cleared to fight. If Figueredo does decide to continue his career in the Flyweight division, I do think he has a very good chance of being a title challenger again, but I do think its safe to say that he’d probably need at least one more good performance against a top contender to justify it.

That leaves the only two who I think are left in the conversation, Brandon Royval and Amir Albazi. Royval is coming off of a first round knockout of Mattheus Nicolau and before that a first round submission of Matt Schnell, both who are within the top 8 of the flyweight rankings as of recording this video. Meanwhile, Albazi is coming off of a controversial split decision victory over Kai Kara France and a third round knockout of Alejandro Costa before that.

When comparing these fighters, I think they are the clear #1 and #2 most deserving challengers at the moment. I do think the slightly better case for the next title shot lies with Brandon Royval, as his recent fights have been more dominant performances with two first round finishes, against two ranked opponents, while Albazi’s last win many people thought should have been a loss, including myself. Brandon Royval is currently on a a three fight winning streak, taking out the mentioned opponents as well as Rogerio Bonterin in a split decision victory. To be fair, I don’t think Royval’s case for a title shot is that amazing compared to the other contenders either, but I do think he’s the most enticing opponent  for the next title shot, if the ufc needed to pick a next challenger asap, while still having a pretty good resume and some momentum to back it up.

Now Royval and Pantoja did face off once before in 2021, when Pantoja beat royval with his signature back-take into a rear naked choke. I think at the moment it’s difficult to say if this would happen again, because we don’t really know if Pantoja is really a level above this tier of challengers. He has shown clearly in his last few fights that he heavily relies on his jiu jitsu to chase submissions, tire out his opponents and accumulate control time, so if he’s paired up to fight another skilled grappler in Royval that has shown plenty of improvement since their last fight, it could result in a very competitive matchup at the least.

So in conclusion, if I was responsible for matchmaking the next flyweight title shot, I’d probably have to go with brandon royval. To be honest I can’t say I feel terribly passionate about this pick, because like I said, the flyweight division is just stacked with great, yet fairly equal talent at the top of the rankings at the moment. But nonetheless, that’s what I got for you guys, thank you, and see you soon.

Bantamweight- Chito Vera