scoring a fifth-round knockout win.<\/a> It was Van\u2019s first title defense since winning the belt at UFC 323 in December, when his bout with longstanding champion Alexandre Pantoja ended in just 26 seconds when Pantoja suffered a freak arm injury defending against a Taira throw.<\/p>\nPresumably, Pantoja will be granted an instant title shot when he returns, though his recovery timetable remains unclear. Should the rematch be made, Van hopes Pantoja gets plenty of calcium to strengthen thos ebones.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you better go get some milk, man,\u201d Van said at the UFC 328 post-fight press conference.<\/p>\n
While it might not change perception of how Van stacks up against Pantoja, the 24-year-old champion received some validation with his win over Taira. The match was billed as a battle of young stars being put under the championship spotlight and it didn\u2019t disappoint as both fighters had their moments, with Van\u2019s striking winning out in the end.<\/p>\n
Van didn\u2019t get the chance to show off his skills against Pantoja and while he still feels bad for how their fight went down, he also doesn\u2019t appreciate Pantoja downplaying how Van beat him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt bad,\u201d Van said. \u201cI told [Pantoja at UFC 323], like, I walked up to him because when I was celebrating I didn\u2019t know his arm was like that. After I saw his arm on the screen, I walked up to him, I say, \u2018Sorry.\u2019 He says, \u2018Sorry,\u2019 this and that, the next thing you know he waited three months and then he came and do little interviews. His \u2018pinoche\u2019 hurt, so he\u2019s saying a lot of shit now, so I don\u2019t know what\u2019s up with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw him yesterday, there\u2019s no hate from me. I talked to him, I shake his hand, but I don\u2019t know what he got in his head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van earned his spot at the top with a frantic fight schedule since joining the UFC in 2023, including an eight-fight stretch in 2024 and 2025 that saw him win seven of eight fights. Now that he\u2019s a champion with a successful title defense under his belt, can fans expect him to remain as active as before?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Van said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to talk to my team, see what\u2019s up. Maybe heal up a little bit and things like that, so at least one more by the end of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Van still wants to face Alexandre Pantoja again and he has some health tips for the former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":["post-662212","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","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662212","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=662212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}