{"id":364742,"date":"2025-12-22T15:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/364742\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T15:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:21:08","slug":"manel-kape-petitions-ufc-for-joshua-van-headliner-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/364742\/","title":{"rendered":"Manel Kape petitions UFC for Joshua Van headliner in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If that\u2019s the case, then Kape (22-7) plans to make a statement against Van (16-2) early next year. A victory for the 32 year-old \u201cStarboy\u201d would undoubtedly lead to a Pantoja rematch after \u201cStarboy\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2021\/2\/5\/22268752\/ufc-vegas-18-live-stream-results-play-by-play-updates-overeem-vs-volkov-apex-mma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was defeated by \u201cThe Cannibal\u201d at UFC Vegas 18<\/a> back in early 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cPeople always think it\u2019s going to be a competitive fight. No, it\u2019s not going to be a competitive fight,\u201d Kape told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/463100\/i-see-joshua-van-as-a-punching-bag-manel-kape-promises-to-destroy-new-ufc-flyweight-champion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Fighting<\/a>. \u201cThe matchmakers, when they see me fight against Joshua Van, they\u2019ll think what? We threw this kid to hell. It\u2019s not going to be a competitive fight. For who thinks it\u2019s going to be a competitive fight, it ain\u2019t going to be a competitive fight. I\u2019m going to destroy him and badly. The competition is going to be a tremendous difference of levels and that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cLet\u2019s go March 8,\u201d Kape said. \u201cThat\u2019s the date. But I don\u2019t mind to fight in Houston. I don\u2019t mind to be a title co-main event. I know this doesn\u2019t happen but I don\u2019t mind this. For me, all that matters for me is fighting for the belt. If it\u2019s a co-main event, a main event, it\u2019s going to be beautiful. UFC can change, put Strickland in the co-main event and me as the main event in Houston. It\u2019s going to be beautiful. It\u2019s not something they cannot change. They can change. February looks beautiful to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It looks equally beautiful to Van, judging by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JoshuaVanBT\/status\/2000230408575983772\" rel=\"nofollow\">this tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If that\u2019s the case, then Kape (22-7) plans to make a statement against Van (16-2) early next year.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,179146,1647],"class_list":{"0":"post-364742","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","15":"tag-ufc-on-paramount","16":"tag-upcoming-ufc-events"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364742","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=364742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}