UFC Vegas 98: Charles Oliveira, Aljamain Sterling, and others react to Brandon Royval vs. Tatsuro Taira scrap: "To think they wanted to cut this entire division"

Charles Oliveira, Aljamain Sterling, and others react to Brandon Royval vs. Tatsuro Taira scrap: "To think they wanted to cut this entire division"

Tatsuro Taira (left) faced the biggest challenge of his career against Brandon Royval (right). [Image courtesy: @ufc on X]

Fellow UFC fighters were impressed with Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira's UFC Vegas 98 battle. Royval put his No.1 position in the flyweight rankings on the line against No.5-ranked Taira in the main event and secured a hard-fought victory after five rounds of action.

In the fight, both men had their moments and narrowly escaped several finishing attempts from each other. The back-and-forth battle had most spectators on the edge of their seats and fighter reactions stand testimony to this.

Renowned MMA fighters like former champions Charles Oliveira, Henry Cejudo, and Aljamain Sterling, among others, took to X and shared their thoughts on the fight.

Check out the reactions below:

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MMA Pros react to Brandon Royval vs. Tatsuro Taira.

Royval vs. Taira was an interesting stylistic matchup where Taira did his best work in the grappling department. The Japanese fighter transitioned between back-take, full mount, and different submission attempts effortlessly and forced Royval to remain committed to defense whenever he took him down.

to his credit, the former title challenger survived the relentless grappling maneuvers and landed the heaviest shots of the fight in the stand-up. He came dangerously close to getting a finish in Round 3 and adjusted to Taira's grappling by the final round, earning a split decision win (48-47 X 2, 47-48) in the process.

This was his second straight win after losing against champion Alexandre Pantoja in their UFC 296 title fight. In his last outing, Royval handed a split decision defeat to former two-time champion Brandon Moreno.

Meanwhile, this was the first defeat of Taira's professional MMA career. The Japanese fighter had amassed an impressive 16-0 (6-0 UFC) record heading into UFC Vegas 98.

Royval was impressed by Taira's performance and gave a heartwarming message to him during the octagon interview:

"Taira. You're the f***ing man. You need a place to train any time you're in Colorado, a ride, or anything, I'm there for you. You're going to become a champion and I hope I can help you one day, bro."

Check out Brandon Royval's comments below (1:00):

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Edited by Rajneesh Suhas Reddy