Manel Kape expects to face new UFC flyweight champion Joshua Van next, but he\u2019s not looking to win the title and a Fight of the Night bonus.<\/p>\n
Instead, after dispatching Brandon Royval with a first-round knockout at the final UFC event in 2025, the veteran 125-pounder promises more of the same if he\u2019s granted his wish to get the first crack at Van. Of course, Van won the title after a freak injury took out Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323, but with the Brazilian sidelined for an undetermined amount of time, the division needs to move forward.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Kape comes in, and he vows to end Van\u2019s reign as champion before it ever really begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see Joshua Van as a punching bag,\u201d Kape told MMA Fighting. \u201cTo be honest, I see Joshua Van as a punching bag. For my fight, I think I only have to go to the gym and punch the bag. That\u2019s the fight that I\u2019m going to have. A hard punching bag. What I\u2019m going to land, whatever I want. Of course, this punching bag is going to throw something but I\u2019m going to avoid.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven Brandon Royval, this is a guy with a lot of volume, a lot of speed \u2014 he didn\u2019t throw anything on me. It ain\u2019t going to be Joshua Van is going to land anything. I\u2019m going to avoid all his punches. I\u2019m going to beat my punching bag. That\u2019s the fight it\u2019s going to be. That\u2019s the title in the news. Joshua Van is going to be the punching bag of Manel Kape.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are a lot of reasons why Kape has so much confidence that he\u2019s going to draw Van next but one of the bigger factors comes down to the old adage about how styles make fights.<\/p>\n
Van is best known as being a dynamic striker, and the same goes for Kape, who has scored three knockouts in a row to put himself in title contention. Kape knows that putting him in the octagon against Van is guaranteed fireworks, although he doesn\u2019t expect the fight to play out like some kind of war where both fighters walk away bloodied and bruised.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it\u2019s going to be a banger but with beautiful violence,\u201d Kape explained. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be a brawl like he did with Brandon Royval. Of course for the fans it was good and everything in all aspects, the brawl and punching in the face but this was a very dumb fight. They showed a lot of holes in their game. They get hurt for nonsense.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it\u2019s going to be a banger of a fight, but it\u2019s going to be a banger, because I\u2019m going to destroy him. I\u2019m going to punch the bag. It\u2019s going to be terrific. When we get to the fight, people don\u2019t understand, it will be the same way as Brandon Royval. People always think it\u2019s going to be a competitive fight. No, it\u2019s not going to be a competitive fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kape is so confident in the results that he believes the UFC matchmakers might actually regret putting him in there with Van when it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s a mix of bravado and fight promotion talking but Kape just doesn\u2019t see how Van survives for five rounds with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matchmakers when they see me fight against Joshua Van, they\u2019ll think what [did we do?]. We threw this kid to hell,\u201d Kape said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be a competitive fight. For who thinks it\u2019s going to be a competitive fight, it ain\u2019t going to be a competitive fight. I\u2019m going to destroy him and badly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition is going to be a tremendous difference of levels and that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as timing goes, Kape immediately suggested a February date in Houston, which would give Van the hometown advantage since he lives and trains there but really he just wants to book the title fight sooner than later.<\/p>\n
Even with Ramadan coming up in February, Kape isn\u2019t backing down from his request to fight Van within the first few months of 2026. He says all the UFC has to do is pick the date and send the contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go March 8 [at UFC 326],\u201d Kape said. \u201cThat\u2019s the date. But I don\u2019t mind to fight in Houston. I don\u2019t mind to be a title [fight] co-main event. I know this doesn\u2019t happen but I don\u2019t mind this. For me, all that matters for me is fighting for the belt. If it\u2019s a co-main event, a main event, it\u2019s going to be beautiful. UFC can change, put [Sean] Strickland in the co-main event [for his fight with Anthony \u2018Fluffy\u2019 Hernandez] and me as the main event in Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be beautiful. It\u2019s not something they cannot change. They can change. February looks beautiful to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manel Kape expects to face new UFC flyweight champion Joshua Van next, but he\u2019s not looking to win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702,3194],"class_list":{"0":"post-361849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361849","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=361849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}