On Sat­ur­day in the octa­gon, Bran­don Roy­val is fight­ing for the kids of south­west Denver.

The 31-year-old Den­ver native takes on Tat­suro Taira in the main event of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas. A win would like­ly cat­a­pult Roy­val, the No. 1 con­tender in the fly­weight divi­sion who beat No. 2 Bran­don Moreno in his last fight, to anoth­er shot at the belt.

It would also help pay for a new gym Roy­val plans to open off Fed­er­al Boule­vard in the south­west part of the city.

“I’m fight­ing for some­thing big­ger than me — I’m fight­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a lot of peo­ple,” Roy­val said. “None of this hap­pens with­out the noto­ri­ety of being ranked No. 1, none of it hap­pens with­out win­ning the fight and get­ting more mon­ey and keep­ing the kind of sta­tus that I’ve earned at this point in my career.

“The goal is just to bring youth in there. I don’t care about build­ing (pro­fes­sion­al) fight­ers. … My goal is to bring world-class MMA and world-class wrestling to the com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly along the Fed­er­al area to pre­dom­i­nate­ly His­pan­ic communities.”

Roy­val, who left Engle­wood-based Fac­to­ry X after his win over Moreno, envi­sions an all-com­pass­ing gym at that spot.

It would give his team, which includes his coach Clay Matza, UFC light­weight Alexan­der Her­nan­dez and Fury Fight­ing Cham­pi­onship titleist fly­weight Luis Gurule, a per­ma­nent place to train. But Roy­val says it would also act as an afford­able youth devel­op­ment pro­gram. He plans to start wrestling class­es and a wrestling club, in addi­tion to MMA training.

The facil­i­ty would also offer men­tor­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties, as well as tutor­ing, coun­sel­ing and nutri­tion services.

“I just want to pro­vide a place that’s safe, and one that keeps kids busy and on the right track,” Roy­val said. “There’s a lot of aid that can be giv­en to these com­mu­ni­ties and kids who live in the sur­round­ing projects, and I’d love to be a part of it as much as pos­si­ble to help shape some of these futures.”

Despite his rank­ing as the top con­tender in the divi­sion and upset of Moreno in Feb­ru­ary in Mex­i­co City, Roy­val enters Sat­ur­day as a +190 bet­ting under­dog, per Draft Kings. Tat­suro Taira is 16–0 as a pro, includ­ing 6–0 in the UFC, and ranked fifth in his weight class. The hype is high for the Japan­ese fight­er, who’s com­ing off a June TKO win over Alex Perez after Perez suf­fered a knee injury in the sec­ond round.

Roy­val, who has trained with Taira in the past, claims “I can dog him every­where.” Roy­val has recov­ered from the torn MCL in his left knee that he suf­fered ear­ly in the win over Moreno.

“I can beat him in a straight-up fight, I can out-tech­nique him, I think I’m faster, I hit hard­er,” Roy­val said. “My ground game’s bet­ter, my striking’s bet­ter. In my opin­ion, he’s a lit­tle green as far as expe­ri­ence goes. He hasn’t real­ly beat any­body (notable). And I’ve fought who’s who.

“I’m here to prove there’s lev­els to this. He’s a good kid, a nice kid. That being said, he’s run­ning into a very not nice man.”

Roy­val believes that with a vic­to­ry over Taira, the UFC won’t be able to deny him a rematch against reign­ing cham­pi­on Alexan­dre Pan­to­ja. The Chat­field grad­u­ate lost to Pan­to­ja via unan­i­mous deci­sion in a title fight last Decem­ber, and Pan­to­ja has since defend­ed his belt again in a vic­to­ry over Steve Erceg at UFC 301 in May.

“I’m going to take out every­one in front of me,” Roy­val said. “That’s all there is to it. Any­one the UFC thinks is a con­tender, I’m going to take them out until they have no choice but to put me back into that title fight.”

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