Former UFC title challenger Brandon Royval had to put his health first when deciding not to compete again.

Last week, Royval (17-7 MMA, 7-3 UFC) announced that he had to pull out of his UFC Fight Night 253 flyweight headliner against Manel Kape (20-7 MMA, 6-3 UFC) on March 1 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

Royval now has opened up on why he withdrew, revealing that back-to-back concussions forced him to take a step back.

“Maybe a couple months back, I had a concussion,” Royval said on his YouTube channel. “Nothing too crazy. I was just playing it safe, playing it smart. A couple weeks later, when I was recovered, I accepted this fight, which was awesome. Fight Manel Kape. I respect his skills, I respect him as a striker and all that. I was training hard for this fight, and being a little reckless and being kind of in the zone for camp, I got another concussion. This one was severely worse.

“It’s been over a week at this point, and I’m still dealing with the repercussions of it and the symptoms of a bad concussion. And because of that reason and because of the reasoning of adding a weight cut, Manel Kape being a good striker, and this being a predominantly striking match that we felt this would be the safest move. Take some time, recover, recover the right way this time, and fight at a later date. Fight when I can fully train, fully take a punch, and give you guys the best of my ability.”

Kape will now face Asu Almabayev instead. After falling short against flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 296, Royval rebounded with back-to-back main event wins over Brandon Moreno and formerly unbeaten Tatsuro Taira.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 253.

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