Joshua Van did not just beat Alexandre Pantoja twice. He solved him.
Van retained the UFC flyweight title Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, taking a unanimous decision over Pantoja in the UFC 331 main event. The scorecards read 49-46, 48-47 and 50-45, and the fight felt closer to that last number than the middle one.
He Won the Fight Pantoja Was Supposed to Win
Pantoja’s whole case in this rematch was grappling. He is one of the best pure grapplers the division has ever produced, and he came in hunting takedowns the way he always does. He tried double digits worth of them. Van stayed upright for almost all of it.
That is the part that should scare the rest of the 125-pound division. Van did not survive the wrestling. He neutralized it, then spent five rounds beating Pantoja to the punch on the feet. By Round 5 he had the former champion hurt, dropping him late in a fight Pantoja needed to finish.
For a fighter out of Myanmar who took this belt off Pantoja in the first place, that is a statement. Two fights, two wins, and the second one was more comfortable than the first.
Two Defenses In, and the Division Has No Answer
This was Van’s second defense of the flyweight strap. He now owns the head-to-head series against the man who held the belt for years and defended it against nearly everyone the UFC put in front of him.
Flyweight has been one of the most competitive weight classes in the sport for the better part of a decade. Pantoja was the constant. He was the standard that challengers measured themselves against. Van has now beaten that standard in back-to-back fights, and he did it by taking away the grappling and winning at range.
The obvious next question is who gets a crack at him. The contender list at 125 pounds does not have an obvious name with a clear stylistic path to beating Van. Pressure fighters have not been able to catch him. Pantoja could not put him on his back. That is a bad combination for everyone else in the top five.
Pantoja Deserves Better Than “Faded”
The lazy take after a loss like this is that the older fighter is finished. Pantoja is not finished. He went five hard rounds with a champion in his prime and took a card home from one judge. He remains a top-three flyweight on any honest list.
The more accurate read is that Van is a terrible matchup for him, and possibly for most of the division. Pantoja’s best weapon got taken away, and once that happened he had no second gear that could threaten Van’s output.
What UFC 331 established is that the flyweight title picture has a new center of gravity. Van is not a fluke champion riding a good night. He beat the best version of the previous king twice, and he got better in between.
If the UFC wants a compelling flyweight main event in 2027, someone new needs to force their way into the conversation fast. Right now Van has cleared the room.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.