Two years ago, Brandon Royval believed he had Alexandre Pantoja on the proverbial ropes in a potential springboard to a championship opportunity.

“I remember walking to the stool between the first and second round, and I’m like, ‘This man is done.’ ” Royval recalled during a recent conversation with The Post via Zoom. “ ‘The title shot’s mine.’ ”

But the Colorado-based flyweight looks back on that August 2021 contest with the benefit of hindsight and believes he got ahead of himself, focusing on securing one of his customary exciting finishes instead of “enjoying the process of being in a fight and just being smart about everything.”

The process he went with, unfortunately, got him finished by Pantoja.

There’s a silver lining for Rovyal: He’ll get a second crack at the Brazilian — who earlier this year captured 125-pound gold — on Dec. 16 in Las Vegas as one half of the UFC 296 championship co-headliner.

Royval (15-6, 13 finishes), now 31, can still picture how it all unraveled in the second frame of that first meeting.

“I overthrew a punch. I got my back taken,” Royval remembers of the key events leading up to the tapout via rear-naked choke. “I just watched everything slip by me. Not watched; he obviously did some amazing things. But in my head, I watched it all slip away.”

Adding salt to the wound: This was Royval’s first career loss via submission, which sticks in the craw of a fighter who first got involved in MMA thanks to older brother Darian opening a pathway to learning jiu-jitsu.

Royval, with nine wins via tapout to his résumé, believes “when you get submitted, you’ve done a whole bunch of things wrong,”

“Even with Pantoja, I remember thinking, ‘What’s he gonna do, rear-naked choke me? That’s crazy,’ ” Royval says. “Looking back, I deserved that. But I remember coming up [earlier in my career] thinking, ‘Bro, I’m never gonna get submitted. None of these guys are ever gonna be able to touch me in jiu-jitsu.’ ”

The healthy portion of humble pie served as a reality check.

“It made me realize how much I wasn’t still working on my craft and just getting away with things that I’ve always done,” says Royval, soberly. “That was a real eye-opening experience.”

With eyes wide open and having lost two straight — having dropped the fight before to eventual two-time flyweight champion Brandon Moreno — Royval steadily built a three-fight win streak.

A split-decision victory over Rogerio Bontorin in January 2022 preceded finishes of Matt Schnell (May 2022 via submission) and Matheus Nicolau (April 2023 via knockout), the last of which locked up the chance to serve as the alternate fighter in July if either of incumbent champion Moreno or then-challenger Pantoja was unable to make their championship bout.

That meant preparing for a fight against either man, making weight, and then staying ready until the morning of the fight without knowing if any of it would be necessary.

But other than the act of cutting weight, Royval says that potential-fight camp was a blast.

“That was actually one of the most fun [times] I’ve ever had preparing for a fight,” Royval says, “because I would have one round Pantoja, one round Moreno, and we’d go back and forth between it, and so I was getting ready for the fight. … I still feel, in that situation, that I was dealing with the best hand.

“If somebody gets pulled out, either one of those guys, I was in the most advantaged place with that because I was already preparing for those two. Those two are very similar — like, not completely similar — but I could get away with a lot of the same things that I would do with Alexandre Pantoja, with Moreno, and vice versa.”

Royval’s services were not needed in the cage that night, so he grabbed Smashburger for lunch and watched as Pantoja (26-5, 18 finishes) moved to 2-0 lifetime against Moreno, picking up a split-decision victory and his first UFC title victory.

Popular opinion was that the right man won, and Royval feels no different.

He also got the result he wanted — a rematch with Pantoja first, with the burning desire of getting a second chance against Moreno down the road as well.

Royval will have five rounds to work with this time for the first time under the UFC banner, having previously competed in a pair of LFA championship fights before arriving on the biggest stage in the sport.

Known for keeping a hectic pace, Royval is “perfectly confident” he can keep up his pace in the championship rounds better than can the relatively more methodical Pantoja.

The upcoming title challenger, who fights out of Factory X in Englewood, Colo., is emboldened by training at altitude.

“I forget what elevation and training at high altitude does to people,” said Royval, referring to a recent visit by outsiders to the gym. “I have good cardio for being a Colorado native, being an MMA fighter in Colorado. I keep a high pace over there.

“Going down to Vegas and going down to sea level is the easy work, man. I do that stuff all the time. I could run for days out there. I could do all that. So, I’m super confident.”