{"id":330158,"date":"2025-12-07T10:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/330158\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T10:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:58:07","slug":"fighters-react-to-joshua-vans-injury-win-vs-alexandre-pantoja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/330158\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighters react to Joshua Van&#8217;s injury win vs. Alexandre Pantoja"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>Joshua Van forced a changing of the guard in the flyweight division at <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-323\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC 323<\/a> when he ended the dominant reign of Alexandre Pantoja \u2013 but not in the way anyone could&#8217;ve predicted.<\/p>\n<p>Van (16-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) became one of the youngest champions in company history with a first-round injury TKO win over Pantoja (30-6 MMA, 14-4 UFC), who suffered a dislocated elbow, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, becoming just the sixth champion in divisional history.<\/p>\n<p>Check below for the top X (formerly Twitter) reactions to Van&#8217;s unfortunate title win vs. Pantoja at UFC 323.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/87653229007-videoframe-3100.png\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>UFC 323: Alexandre Pantoja breaks arm, Joshua Van wins title<\/p>\n<p>The UFC 323 co-main event had an unfortunate end with Joshua Van claiming gold after Alexandre Pantoja was injured.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">OMG. Pantoja just injured his arm throwing a kick in the opening seconds and has lost the flyweight title to Joshua Van by TKO.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Andreas Hale (@AndreasHale) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AndreasHale\/status\/1997534337898864816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Awful. Completely gutted for Pantoja, and surely not the way Joshua Van wanted to be crowned champion. Sucks, man. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UFC323?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#UFC323<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Bohn (@MikeBohn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeBohn\/status\/1997534561945956699?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Pantoja injured in the opening exchange and he waves the fight off. Left arm looked pretty nasty. Tough way to lose the belt, but Joshua Van is the new champion. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UFC323?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#UFC323<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Adam Hill (@AdamHillLVRJ) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamHillLVRJ\/status\/1997534655172735329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">OMG! Pantoja dislocated his elbow.<br \/>That hurts to watch. \ud83d\ude35<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UFC323?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#UFC323<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Diana Belbi\u021b\u0103 (@DianaBelbita) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DianaBelbita\/status\/1997534601951215961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">WELLLLLL. Joshua Van is now the 2nd youngest champion in UFC history at 24 years, 1 month, and 27 days (J. Jones: 23 years, 8 months, 1 day). <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UFC323?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#UFC323<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Carroll (@MJCflipdascript) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MJCflipdascript\/status\/1997535205691977990?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">JOSHUA VAN IS THE NEW FLYWEIGHT CHAMPION AFTER STARTING 2025 AS AN UNRANKED FIGHTER.<\/p>\n<p>HE IS THE FIRST FIGHTER BORN IN THE 2000s TO WIN A TITLE AND THE 2ND YOUNGEST IN UFC HISTORY BEHIND JON JONES. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UFC323?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#UFC323<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IGCP0LYBNI\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IGCP0LYBNI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESPN MMA (@espnmma) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/espnmma\/status\/1997535507266629745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">At 26 seconds, Van\u2019s win over Pantoja is the fastest title fight finish in flyweight history, beating out Henry Cejudo\u2019s 32 second knockout of TJ Dillashaw.<\/p>\n<p>It is the third fastest finish in flyweight history overall.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaronbronsteter\/status\/1997535774175060430?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Van been averaging 5 fights a year let\u2019s see if he can beat Merab\u2019s record as a champ<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Belal Muhammad (@bullyb170) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bullyb170\/status\/1997536252703232361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 7, 2025<\/a><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Van forced a changing of the guard in the flyweight division at UFC 323 when he ended&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[137020,137021,11040,76,43,4225,1262,2034,44,1333,2042,1345,137022,1334,82,865,41,39,42,40,5476,640,66312],"class_list":["post-330158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-137020","tag-alexandre","tag-alexandre-pantoja","tag-arts","tag-headlines","tag-martial","tag-martial-arts","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-overall-positive","tag-pantoja","tag-positive","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-twitter","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-323"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}