{"id":387595,"date":"2026-01-04T12:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/387595\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T12:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:37:08","slug":"alexandre-pantoja-back-sparring-after-nasty-ufc-323-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/387595\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandre Pantoja back sparring after nasty UFC 323 injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cCannibal\u201d appears to be healing quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Earlier this week, former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja received a positive medical update from longtime head coach Marcos \u201cParrumpinha\u201d DaMatta following the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-323-fight-card-start-time-live-results-merab-vs-yan-2-mma\/407750\/watch-ufc-323-video-highlights-results-espn-ppv-las-vegas-pantoja-van-broken-arm-tko\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gruesome elbow injury he suffered just seconds<\/a> into his title loss to Joshua Van at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-323-fight-card-start-time-live-results-merab-vs-yan-2-mma\/405914\/ufc-323-results-highlights-play-by-play-merab-vs-yan-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC 323<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">However, Pantoja may be ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Brazilian recently shared footage of himself sparring and lifting weights, signaling that his recovery is progressing faster than expected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cVictory is being built every day,\u201d Pantoja wrote on social media. \u201cAnd I have to be better than I was yesterday. I am my only opponent. Gratitude for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Check out the video below:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While Pantoja and his team have circled summer 2026 as a realistic target for his return, the former champion has made it clear he intends to reclaim what he lost. Given his resume, an immediate title shot would be well within reason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The loss to Van snapped an eight-fight winning streak that included four Flyweight title defenses \u2014 a dominant run that firmly established Pantoja as one of the toughest champions in division history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCannibal\u201d appears to be healing quickly. Earlier this week, former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,66312,702,3194],"class_list":{"0":"post-387595","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-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-323","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387595","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=387595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}