{"id":40591,"date":"2025-08-03T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/40591\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T15:30:09","slug":"tatsuro-taira-100-percent-my-skill-is-higher-than-alexandre-pantoja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/40591\/","title":{"rendered":"Tatsuro Taira: \u2018100 percent my skill is higher than\u2019 Alexandre Pantoja"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tatsuro Taira<\/a> is feeling like a champion following a dominant win at UFC Vegas 108<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Better than a champion, actually.<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s flyweight main event at UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Taira completely outclassed Hyun Sung Park<\/a>, submitting the short-notice replacement early in the second round with a neck crank to bounce back from his first-ever loss and improve his pro record to 17-1.<\/p>\n

In his post-fight interview\u2014with some prodding from cageside commentator Michael Bisping<\/a>\u2014Taira called for a fight with current flyweight king Alexandre Pantoja<\/a>. He went on to further argue his case later in the evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say 100 percent my skill is higher than the champion,\u201d Taira said at the evening\u2019s post-fight press conference<\/a> via a Japanese translator.<\/p>\n

Just 25 years old, Taira has impressed in his first eight UFC appearances, compiling a 7-1 record and earning himself a top 10 spot in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings<\/a>. He was originally scheduled to face fellow contender Amir Albazi<\/a>, but earlier this week Albazi was ruled out of Saturday\u2019s event after not being medically cleared to compete.<\/p>\n

Instead, Taira fought Park, who entered their matchup with a 10-0 record. Given his level of self-belief, it shouldn\u2019t be surprising Taira wasn\u2019t thrown off by the opponent change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opponent changed,\u201d Taira said. \u201cIt was Hyun Sung Park, I knew him from winning the Road to UFC, but I\u2019m the best in the flyweight [division]. I\u2019m very confident and I believe that I\u2019m the best, so not a huge issue for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pantoja\u2019s next title defense is expected to take place against Joshua Van<\/a>, who is coming off of a spectacular decision win over Brandon Royval<\/a>, the fighter who handed Taira his first loss. Asked if he expects to have to wait for the winner of the still-to-be-scheduled Pantoja vs. Van fight, Taira said he\u2019d like to be booked for a fight on the same card as that matchup.<\/p>\n

Taira pointed to the Royval loss as a pivotal moment in his young career and credited his team for his successful turnaround.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my last fight I learned my weakness,\u201d Taira said. \u201cBut my team, everyone from my team still believed that I would be a champion, so I just kept working hard, promising that I\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tatsuro Taira is feeling like a champion following a dominant win at UFC Vegas 108. Better than a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[35861,64,63,786,585,21568,1460,1347,785,35859,35862,35858,35860,85,35063,35857,8293,787,1396],"class_list":["post-40591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alexandre","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-front-page","tag-higher","tag-is","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-my","tag-pantoja","tag-percent","tag-skill","tag-sports","tag-taira","tag-tatsuro","tag-than","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40591","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=40591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}