{"id":501019,"date":"2026-02-24T13:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501019\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:19:09","slug":"tatsuro-taira-gets-title-shot-against-joshua-van-over-manel-kape-sports-news-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501019\/","title":{"rendered":"Tatsuro Taira gets title shot against Joshua Van over Manel Kape \u2014 Sports News Blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sqsrte-large\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Title shot surprise: Taira gets the call<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Van broke the news that Taira will be his first title defence during the Fan Q&amp;A ahead of UFC Houston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Many thought that Manel Kape was next in line for the title, including Van, who was offered Kape on two weeks notice for UFC 326:<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cMick Maynard and my managers said, \u2018Who you want: Manel or Taira for March 7?\u2019 I said Manel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cI don&#8217;t know what happened a couple of days later, they said Taira.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">After Kape\u2019s first-round knockout of Brandon Royval in December 2025, he seemed to be the number one contender.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Kape has not come out and clarified whether he turned down the title shot or had been overlooked for Taira.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Van gave Taira his flowers when discussing his match-up: &#8220;He&#8217;s well-rounded. We all know that I&#8217;m a better striker and he&#8217;s a better grappler.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Taira had a good campaign in 2025 after the first loss of his career in October 2024, with two wins against Hyun Sung Park and Brandon Royval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">MORE FOR YOU: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesportsnewsblitz.com\/news\/mma-news-champion-khamzat-chimaev-reacts-to-sean-strickland-ko-win-over-anthony-hernandez\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MMA news: Champion Khamzat Chimaev reacts to Sean Strickland KO win over Anthony Hernandez<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Title shot surprise: Taira gets the call Van broke the news that Taira will be his first title&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-501019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501019","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=501019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}