{"id":439842,"date":"2026-01-27T03:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T03:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/439842\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T03:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T03:18:09","slug":"manel-kape-slams-joshua-van-after-champ-accuses-him-of-turning-down-short-notice-ufc-324-bout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/439842\/","title":{"rendered":"Manel Kape slams Joshua Van after champ accuses him of turning down short-notice UFC 324 bout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UFC flyweight contender Manel Kape didn\u2019t hold back on champion Joshua Van over recent fight dodging allegations linked to UFC 324.<\/p>\n<p>UFC 324 took a big hit just days before the event as women\u2019s bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison was forced to withdraw from her fight with Amanda Nunes due to a neck injury. Harrison recently underwent surgery for the injury and is expected to miss around six months before being medically cleared to compete.<\/p>\n<p>After UFC 324, it was alleged by UFC flyweight champion Joshua Van that he nearly stepped up on short notice to fight a top contender in the co-main event slot. Manel Kape, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/ufc-vegas-112-winner-manel-kape-sends-fiery-warning-to-joshua-van\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">knocked out Brandon Royval last month<\/a> in the year\u2019s UFC finale, was allegedly approached to fight Van at UFC 324.<\/p>\n<p>Van accused Kape of turning down the fight due to weight issues, blasting Kape in a series of social media posts. It didn\u2019t take long for the knockout artist Kape to respond.<\/p>\n<p>Manel Kape: Joshua Van fight offered to fill for Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes<\/p>\n<p>In a recent post to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ManelKape\/status\/2015934280548155419?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">X<\/a>, Kape responded to Van\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me explain what this idiot is talking about. First of all, there was never a contract. Second, the UFC \u2018considered\u2019 me fighting Joshua last Saturday to replace the Kayla vs. Amanda fight, but thye told me only one week before,\u201d Kape tweeted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd obviously, there\u2019s no way I\u2019d make weight in one week [LAUGHS]. And if I missed weight, I\u2019d be more frozen than Arman Tsarukyan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s do things the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Van earned the flyweight belt by defeating Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323, after Pantoja suffered a serious injury just seconds into the fight. Meanwhile, Kape has won three fights in a row since a unanimous decision defeat to Muhammad Mokaev at UFC 304.<\/p>\n<p>As of this writing, it\u2019s uncertain if Van will fight Pantoja or Kape for his first title defense. If Pantoja <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-doubles-down-criticism-alexandre-pantoja-injury-loss\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">needs time to recover from his recent ailment<\/a>, expect Kape to be the most logical option to fight the newly minted champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC flyweight contender Manel Kape didn\u2019t hold back on champion Joshua Van over recent fight dodging allegations linked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[30389,64,63,786,41111,35956,189371,785,85,787,133987],"class_list":{"0":"post-439842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-amanda-nunes","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-joshua-van","13":"tag-kayla-harrison","14":"tag-manel-kape","15":"tag-mma","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ufc","18":"tag-ufc-324"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439842","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=439842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}