Brandon Royval certainly made the most of his opportunity to step in against Brandon Moreno following Amir Albazi's withdrawal from the contest, beating Moreno with a split decision in the main event of UFC Mexico City.
Royval brought the heat with serious output and from the first bell, not letting Moreno get a foothold in the fight.
But as a 13 year veteran of the game, Moreno remained unphased throughout and managed to steal the first round on two of the three judges score cards.
With Royval's output being so high, Moreno largely had to rely on his counter striking throughout, and found some success with his right hand, continually.
Ultimately, the busier man was the victor on the night, although a split decision, Royval done enough on two of the three scorecards to take the split decision with the score cards reading 48-47, 46-49, 48-47.
In the co-main event Brian Ortega rallied in the third round and managed to turn the tides of his contest with Yair Rodriguez, submitting the Mexican in the third round.
For 'T-City' things got off to an awful start when he rolled his ankle during the introductions, before the contest had even begun. It didn't get much better for him as Rodriguez reigned strikes on Ortega and was arguably close to ending the contest on numerous occasions.
Somehow, Ortega managed to stay in the contest and locked up a triangle choke in the third to secure the win.
The highly anticipated return of Raul Rosas Jr. was pulled just minutes before he was meant to face Rick Turcios with Rosas Jr. coming down with an illness which left him unable to compete.
The rest of the card largel saw success for the Mexicans with six of the eight having their hand raised.
Daniel Zellhuber and Yazmin Jauregui both secured unanimous decisions wins over Francisco Prado and Sam Hughes, respectively.
Manuel Torres continued his impressive run of first round finishes, stopping Chris Duncan in less than two minutes with a rear naked choke in the first round.
Raoni Barcelos upset the home crowd with a third round submission over Cristian Quinonez.
Jesus Aguilar managed to edge a split decision over Mateus Mendonca whilst Edgar Chairez secured his first UFC win with a first round submission in his rematch against Daniel Lacerda.
In a night dominated with submissions, Rolando Rodriguez secured his first UFC win in his promotional debut with a second round rear naked choke just one second before the bell.
Fares Ziam, Felipe dos Santos and Muhammad Naimov also all picked up wins.
Watch Royval's full post fight interview below:
