{"id":318590,"date":"2025-11-30T12:59:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T12:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/318590\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T12:59:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T12:59:04","slug":"alexandre-pantoja-shuts-down-merab-superfight-with-one-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/318590\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandre Pantoja shuts down Merab superfight \u2014 with one exception"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCannibal\u201d vs. \u201cMachine\u201d isn\u2019t happening \u2014 at least not any time soon.<\/p>\n

After UFC 322<\/a> delivered two champion vs. champion matchups (with only one new champ crowned<\/a>), attention quickly shifted to UFC Flyweight king Alexandre Pantoja. The 125-pound champion defends his title next weekend against rising contender Joshua Van at UFC 323<\/a>, and if he gets past the surging 24-year-old, the division\u2019s options are\u2026 limited. Beyond Tatsuro Taira and teammate Kyoji Horiguchi, the cupboard is getting bare.<\/p>\n

But Pantoja has already shut down the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Merab is one of the best fighters in the world, you know, 100%. He\u2019s the number three pound-for-pound, maybe number two,\u201d Pantoja told TMZ Sports. \u201cMerab is a tough opponent for everybody in his division\u2026.It\u2019s not easy to think about going up 10 pounds and thinking you can finish someone like Merab, you know? When you talk about 10 pounds to my division, Flyweight to the Bantamweight, it\u2019s a huge comparison\u2026If you saw Weili Zhang versus Valentina Shevchenko, you can see the difference in size.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf O\u2019Malley got the belt, I\u2019m going to say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m ready to go.\u2019 But with Merab, it\u2019s different,\u201d Pantoja said.<\/p>\n

Since Sean O\u2019Malley has already lost to Dvalishvili twice<\/a> and is unlikely to sniff a title shot unless someone finally solves the Merab puzzle, Pantoja seems perfectly content staying at 125 pounds \u2014 and chasing Demetrious Johnson\u2019s legendary record of 11 title defenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCannibal\u201d vs. \u201cMachine\u201d isn\u2019t happening \u2014 at least not any time soon. After UFC 322 delivered two champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-318590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}