{"id":495348,"date":"2026-02-21T20:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T20:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495348\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T20:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T20:27:08","slug":"joshua-van-set-to-defend-title-at-ufc-327-vs-tatsuro-taira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495348\/","title":{"rendered":"Joshua Van set to defend title at UFC 327 vs. Tatsuro Taira"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joshua Van is set for his first UFC flyweight title defense.<\/p>\n<p>At UFC 327, Van (16-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) will meet top contender Tatsuro Taira, as the promotion has chosen to keep the division moving while <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/alexandre-pantoja\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Alexandre Pantoja;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Alexandre Pantoja<\/a> heals from injury. The event takes place April 11 at Kaseya Center in Miami. MMA Junkie confirmed the championship booking with sources following a first report from <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/realkevink\/status\/2023035049135018162?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Krazy Kev MMA;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Krazy Kev MMA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Van won the UFC flyweight title by an unceremonious injury TKO against Pantoja at UFC 323 in December. The win not only crowned Van as the first Myanmar-born champion in promotion history, but it also extended his winning streak to six.<\/p>\n<p>Taira (18-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC), who holds the No. 5 spot in the latest USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/rankings\/fly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:flyweight rankings;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">flyweight rankings<\/a>, will get his first crack at the title after winning back-to-back fights. In October 2024, he lost the only fight of his career by split decision to former title challenger Brandon Royval. However, he bounced back with a pair of second-round stoppages of Hyun Sung Park and former champion Brandon Moreno.<\/p>\n<p>Current UFC 327 lineup includes:<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Joshua Van vs. Tatsuro Taira \u2013 for flyweight title<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Dominick Reyes vs. Johnny Walker<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Tatiana Suarez vs. Loopy Godinez<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Paulo Costa vs. Azamat Murzakanov<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Nate Landwehr vs. Cub Swanson<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Kyle Daukaus vs. Vicente Luque<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Randy Brown vs. Kevin Holland<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2026\/02\/21\/ufc-327-joshua-van-vs-tatsuro-taira-flyweight-title-fight\/88788032007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC 327: Joshua Van set to defend flyweight title vs. Tatsuro Taira;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC 327: Joshua Van set to defend flyweight title vs. Tatsuro Taira<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Van is set for his first UFC flyweight title defense. At UFC 327, Van (16-2 MMA, 9-1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[11160,64,63,786,41111,249663,785,3169,85,29100,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-495348","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-fighting","12":"tag-joshua-van","13":"tag-krazy-kev-mma","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-mma-junkie","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tatsuro-taira","18":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495348","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=495348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}