{"id":586181,"date":"2026-04-05T02:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586181\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:20:09","slug":"vans-injury-pushes-title-defense-vs-taira-to-ufc-328-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586181\/","title":{"rendered":"Van’s injury pushes title defense vs. Taira to UFC 328 in May"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Brett OkamotoApr 5, 2026, 11:09 AM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Brett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN since 2010. He has covered all of the biggest events in combat sports during that time, including in-depth interviews and features with names such as Dana White, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Georges St-Pierre. He was also a producer on the 30 for 30 film: “Chuck and Tito,” which looked back at the careers and rivalry of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. He lives in Las Vegas, and is an avid, below-average golfer in his spare time.<\/p>\n

Multiple Authors<\/p>\n

UFC flyweight champion Joshua Van<\/a>‘s first title defense will be pushed back to next month because of a minor injury, officials announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Van (16-2) was scheduled to defend his belt against Tatsuro Taira<\/a> (18-1) at UFC 327 next weekend in Miami, but the championship contest has been postponed to UFC 328 on May 9 in Newark. The fight joins a card that will be headlined by a middleweight title fight between Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> and Sean Strickland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van, 24, became the second-youngest champion in UFC history in December, when he claimed the 125-pound belt from Alexandre Pantoja<\/a> at UFC 323. Fighting out of Myanmar, Van has won six in a row.<\/p>\n

The UFC 327 event at Kaseya Center in Miami is headlined by a vacant light heavyweight title bout between Jiri Prochazka<\/a> and Carlos Ulberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett OkamotoApr 5, 2026, 11:09 AM CloseBrett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-586181","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-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586181","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=586181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}