Joshua Van has long since moved on from how he became UFC flyweight champion after a freak injury ended his fight against Alexandre Pantoja this past December.<\/p>\n
While he would have preferred to deliver a brutal knockout, Van can\u2019t be faulted for how everything played out and he\u2019s not going to turn down a championship title in a fight he officially won. That said, Van expects that he\u2019ll cross paths with Pantoja again in the future.<\/p>\n
Right now he\u2019s putting his full focus on his first title defense against Tatsuro Taira in Saturday\u2019s UFC 328 co-main event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is over with,\u201d Van told MMA Fighting. \u201cRight now, I\u2019m just focusing on Taira. Like I said, me and Pantoja going to run it back anyways after this fight. I don\u2019t think about that no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t expect Van to try and justify his title reign because of how it started, though he definitely agrees with the idea that Pantoja deserves another chance when he\u2019s healthy and ready to compete again. It appears Pantoja has been cleared to return to action so now it\u2019s just a matter of timing when he fights with hopes of reclaiming the flyweight title.<\/p>\n
While Van definitely plans on shutting down Pantoja again, he recognizes that the Brazilian was on a remarkable run as champion, which is why he shouldn\u2019t have to fight his way back to another title shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacts,\u201d Van said about Pantoja deserving the rematch. \u201cHe dominated the division. It\u2019s only right they give him the rematch. Yeah, I really hope me and him can run it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, Van isn\u2019t thinking about Pantoja because he has a challenger in Taira trying to take his title away before he even gets to enjoy being champion.<\/p>\n
The fight came together after Van initially pushed for an earlier return date and he thought he might be competing as early as February. At that time, Van had two potential opponents presented to him by the UFC, Taira and Manel Kape.<\/p>\n
In the end, Taira got the opportunity, but it took some time to get there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they first called me for the two weeks\u2019 notice they said Taira or Manel and I said Manel,\u201d Van said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t go through. Then for March 7, they said let\u2019s do it and I said yes. Both of them said no, I guess. Now the UFC is like you\u2019re fighting Tatsuro and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely going to fight all of these guys anyway. I just want to get whoever. I just chose Manel because he called me out so I wanted to run that but now I\u2019ve got Tatsuro to worry about. After that, whoever the UFC gives me.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was bad blood brewing between Van and Kape as they argued over social media about potential fight dates and offers for the title fight. There\u2019s no such animosity with Taira, who has been nothing but respectful towards Van in the days and weeks leading up to UFC 328.<\/p>\n
That said, Van knows that having an intense rivalry with an opponent doesn\u2019t always guarantee a better fight so he really didn\u2019t care who the UFC gave him.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, it hypes the fans up when we talk shit and all this stuff,\u201d Van said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, look at Manel versus Muhammad Mokaev. I don\u2019t want to end up like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
For this upcoming fight, Van has heard the narrative that it\u2019s a classic striker versus grappler matchup, but he isn\u2019t preparing as if Taira is only going to try to take him to the canvas.<\/p>\n
Given Taira\u2019s style, he\u2019s undoubtedly one of the strongest grapplers in the flyweight division and Van welcomes him trying to put him on the floor. He promises Taira won\u2019t like the result.<\/p>\n
\u201cTatsuro, he\u2019s a well-rounded guy,\u201d Van said. \u201cHe\u2019s not just a grappler no more. He\u2019s got a little bit of strikes so that kind excites me. I want to test myself against Tatsuro. He\u2019s up and coming, he\u2019s my age so I really want to test myself against a great fighter like Tatsuro.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people shoot on me and you know what happened. Like I said, for him to do his ground work, he\u2019s got to shoot and take me down. That\u2019s that. That\u2019s on his part to worry about. As far as I know, myself, he\u2019s got to figure me out. It\u2019s going to be whoever figures the other out first. I feel like he\u2019s a smart fighter. He\u2019s going to take his time and I\u2019m going to take my time and then when I get my timing, we go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Van has long since moved on from how he became UFC flyweight champion after a freak injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-655846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655846","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=655846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}