{"id":356867,"date":"2025-12-18T21:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356867\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T21:20:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:20:14","slug":"why-ufc-analyst-says-joshua-van-vs-alexandre-pantoja-rematch-wont-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356867\/","title":{"rendered":"Why UFC analyst says Joshua Van vs. Alexandre Pantoja rematch won’t happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Din Thomas thinks the chapter between Joshua Van<\/a> and Alexandre Pantoja<\/a> is closed.<\/p>\n

Van (15-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) dethroned Pantoja to claim the flyweight title at UFC 323<\/a> after Pantoja (30-6 MMA, 14-4 UFC) injured his arm just 26 seconds into the fight. With no clear information on the extent of Pantoja’s arm injury, the UFC analyst thinks the division will move on.<\/p>\n

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Thomas sees Van getting booked against Manel Kape (22-7 MMA, 7-3 UFC), who delivered a statement TKO of Brandon Royval<\/a> this past Saturday in the UFC on ESPN 73 main event. Van welcomed Kape’s callout<\/a> and is willing to fight him at UFC Fight Night 266 on Feb. 7 in Houston.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, I don’t think he gets Pantoja,” Thomas told MMA Junkie of Van. “I don’t think he fights Pantoja again. I think Pantoja might be out for a little longer. I think they’re going to put Manel Kape in there. No one knows the extent of the damage. If it’s been a week and we don’t even know what the damage is \u2013 it can’t be we can’t find out what the damage is and then, ‘You know what, it’s just a little sprain, get back in there.’ I doubt that’s the case.”<\/p>\n

That’s not the only reason Thomas doesn’t see a Van vs. Pantoja rematch happening.<\/p>\n

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“I think for Pantoja to fight Van again, it’ll have to be down the road somewhere in an obscure fight. Everything has been shaken off, and those are the two guys left, but I don’t see that happening,” Thomas said. “I think that was a weird, one-off type fight that just happened. They got Van the title, and I will say this too: I’m glad he celebrated. … I just don’t see him fighting Pantoja again. I think he’s going to fight Manel Kape next, and I don’t think that’s a fight he can win.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Why UFC analyst doesn’t think Van vs. Pantoja rematch will ever happen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Din Thomas thinks the chapter between Joshua Van and Alexandre Pantoja is closed. Van (15-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[11160,64,63,31093,786,41111,189371,785,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-356867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-alexandre-pantoja","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-din-thomas","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-joshua-van","14":"tag-manel-kape","15":"tag-mma","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356867","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=356867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}