Van vs Pantoja 2: 26 seconds settled nothing, and both men think the rematch proves them right

Van vs Pantoja 2 headlines UFC 331 on September 19 in Los Angeles, and it exists because the first fight never really happened. Joshua Van won the flyweight title in 26 seconds when Alexandre Pantoja’s arm gave out on the way to the canvas. Van has defended the belt since. Pantoja calls the loss a gift. Saturday decides who is right.

Fight card, results and fighters UFC 331: Van vs. Pantoja 2 →

Key takeaways

Joshua Van (17-2) defends the UFC flyweight title against Alexandre Pantoja (30-6) in the UFC 331 main event on September 19 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
At UFC 323 on December 6, 2025, Van caught Pantoja's high kick, drove him to the mat and won by TKO after 26 seconds when Pantoja injured his elbow in the fall.
Van has since defended the belt with a fifth-round TKO of Tatsuro Taira at UFC 328; Pantoja, 36, wants to become the third flyweight to regain the UFC title.

How the first Van vs Pantoja fight ended

A caught kick and a bad landing

The first fight lasted 26 seconds. At UFC 323 in Las Vegas on December 6, 2025, Pantoja threw a high right kick, Van caught it and drove him toward the mat. Pantoja twisted on the way down, put his arm out to brace the fall and landed on it. The referee waved it off immediately. The injury was first described as a shoulder problem before Pantoja’s team confirmed it was the elbow.

Van, then 24, became one of the youngest champions in UFC history on a night where he had barely thrown a strike. “I didn’t know what happened. He just stopped,” he said afterward.

Two readings of the same moment

That ambiguity is what sells the rematch. Pantoja has always framed it as an accident, not a defeat. Van has taken the opposite line: before his first defense he said he caused the injury himself by pushing Pantoja down after catching the kick. Neither version can be proven from 26 seconds of footage, which is exactly why the UFC booked it again.

Joshua Van, a champion who has already defended

The title fight after the title fight

Van did not wait for the rematch to validate the belt. At UFC 328 in May he defended it against Tatsuro Taira and stopped him in the fifth round, a win that answered the question of whether he could go five rounds at the top of the division. His record now stands at 17-2.

That defense changes the rematch. Van arrives not as the man who won on an injury, but as a champion with a completed, finished title fight on his record. He is younger, fresher and has momentum on his side.

What he has to manage

The risk for Van is the kind of fight Pantoja wants. Pantoja is at his most dangerous in scrambles and on the back, and a caught kick or a clinch exchange can turn into exactly the grappling sequence the Brazilian lives for. Van has to keep the fight in open space long enough for his pace to matter.

I feel like this was such a great gift from God, to allow me to lose like that and come back to have this opportunity to go again and get the championship back.
— Alexandre Pantoja, to Stake

Alexandre Pantoja and the case for getting the belt back

A long reign cut short

Pantoja (30-6) had held the belt since June 2023 and defended it four times, against Brandon Royval, Steve Erceg, Kai Asakura and Kai Kara-France, before the injury ended his reign. He is 36 now, and a win would make him only the third flyweight in UFC history to regain the title, after Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo.

He talks about the loss in a way few champions do. Speaking to Stake, he called it a gift and said it forced him to rebuild his preparation, from training and diet to sleep and his coaching team.

What decides the rematch

The fight turns on one question: can Pantoja get to the grappling he is known for before Van’s volume takes over? If he finds the back or controls the exchanges, his experience in five-round title fights becomes the deciding edge. If Van keeps it standing and makes him chase, age and the long layoff since December start to show.

Follow Van vs Pantoja 2 with real numbers

Joshua Van’s and Alexandre Pantoja’s full records, their title fight history and the current flyweight rankings are in the FightHub app, updated through fight week. Download it to compare the champions before September 19.