{"id":564573,"date":"2026-03-27T15:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T15:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/564573\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T15:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T15:21:08","slug":"joshua-van-believes-he-reignited-interest-in-ass-ufc-flyweight-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/564573\/","title":{"rendered":"Joshua Van believes he reignited interest in “ass” UFC flyweight division"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua Van believes he was the one to help really reignite interest in the UFC\u2019s flyweight division.<\/p>\n

As we know, Joshua Van is the UFC flyweight champion. He is set to defend the belt<\/a> at UFC 327 against Tatsuro Taira, in a fight that many believed should have been awarded to Manel Kape. Either way, Van is ready to prove that he is deserving of being world champion after getting the belt courtesy of an injury to Alexandre Pantoja in their own title clash.<\/p>\n

RELATED: UFC champion Joshua Van claims he\u2019s never watched Demetrious Johnson\u2019s fights<\/a><\/p>\n

In terms of the rest of the division, there\u2019s a lot to get excited about. Most notably, Manel Kape will face off against Kyoji Horiguchi in an upcoming main event that will almost certainly determine who the true number one contender really is.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview, Van had some interesting comments regarding the state of the flyweights prior to his arrival.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Van\u2019s view on UFC flyweight division<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter this fight, everything will change for sure,\u201d Van told MMA Junkie Radio. \u201cBefore I came to the UFC, the flyweight division was ass. Nobody paid attention to the flyweight division, and then I come to the division and I lit a fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019ve got a lot of talent. Tatsuro, myself, we\u2019ve still got (Brandon) Royval, Manel (Kape), all these guys. Before I got to the UFC, it was like one or two people that were at the top and that was it. But now we\u2019ve got all this talent, so after this fight, everything will change for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTatsuro is a well-rounded guy and we were supposed to fight before,\u201d Van said. \u201cI\u2019m actually excited for this fight. He\u2019s a well-rounded guy, he\u2019s good on the ground, he\u2019s got a little bit of striking, so I\u2019m ready to test myself against this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quotes via MMA Junkie<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you agree with this statement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, BJPENN Nation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Van believes he was the one to help really reignite interest in the UFC\u2019s flyweight division. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-564573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564573","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=564573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}