UFC flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja revealed that he almost passed out during his title defense against Brandon Royval at UFC 296, but managed to recover and win the fight by unanimous decision.
Alexandre Pantoja pulled off a successful UFC flyweight championship defense. His unanimous decision win over Brandon Royval at UFC 296 was a nail-biter.
From an outsider’s perspective, Pantoja seemed to lose steam in the championship rounds. Yet, he managed to keep Royval on his toes with a rear-naked choke in the fourth frame. But here’s the kicker: Pantoja almost passed out during that submission attempt. He spilled the beans on the Trocação Franca podcast.
“I nearly blacked out trying to finish him,” Pantoja confessed. Between the third and fourth rounds, his coach, Marcos ‘Parrumpinha’, dropped a bombshell. “We lost that round,” he said. Pantoja couldn’t believe it. He considers ‘Parrumpinha’ the best coach in the world. His words were a wake-up call, a reminder that they were fighting an American on American soil. Every move mattered.
Before the one-minute break ended, Pantoja was up and ready. He was laser-focused on the next round. But then, things took a turn for the worse.
“I started strong, but when I took his back, I started feeling sick,” Pantoja admitted. He felt like he was about to pass out. It was a first for him. “I started seeing the world spin, like when you’re drunk and everything starts spinning. I thought, ‘Damn, I’m going out here.’ I couldn’t let him escape. If he did, I’d be in real trouble.”
Despite the scare, Pantoja managed to work on a neck crank. He tried to choke out Royval, who showed incredible resilience. Royval escaped the finishing move that Pantoja used to tap him out in their first octagon meeting in 2021.
“It felt like a movie playing in my head. ‘It’s time, I’ll catch him,'” Pantoja recalled. He used all his remaining energy. “It wasn’t under the chin, it was more of a neck crank, but that still hurts. Hats off to Brandon Royval. He was willing to go the extra mile in the fight. He escaped, reversed position, and ended on top. I had no energy left. I gave him the position and stayed under. I tried a leg lock to keep him on his toes.”
Before the fifth round, Pantoja filled in his coaches, “Parrumpinha” and Luciano “Macarrão”, about his condition. He was careful with his words. Everyone was listening. He was upset that his conversation didn’t make it to the broadcast. He told his coaches he was dizzy. Very dizzy.
His striking coach, ‘Macarrão’, told him to get up. He hugged Pantoja and started jumping with him in the octagon. Pantoja wished he had that footage. “Let me go, ‘Macarrão’! What are you doing? He’ll see that I’m not OK,” Pantoja laughed. It was a funny situation.
The Brazilian flyweight took a moment to recover in the fifth round. He was healthy enough to continue for five more minutes and win the decision. He has rewatched the bout four times, scoring it 50-45 in his favor. Now, he hopes to defend his title in Brazil in 2024, likely against the winner of Brandon Moreno vs. Amir Albazi.