Athletes
JOSHUA VAN REFLECTS ON WHIRLWIND JUNE
Flyweight Standout Discusses Rapid Ascent, Eagerness To Face Alexandre Pantoja
Joshua Van headed into his clash with Bruno Silva at UFC 316 with the intention of buying his mom a new place after his victory. He then went out, stopped Silva in the third round to run his winning streak to four, and found a new place for mom to call home. But before he could celebrate the win and get her moved in, his phone rang.
Manel Kape broke his foot and was out of his highly anticipated clash with Brandon Royval at UFC 317, and he was being offered the opportunity to step in and face the recent title challenger and No. 1 contender.
“When they called us for that fight, there wasn’t a question of like, ‘Are we gonna take it?’” Van said over the weekend, reflecting on his second June appearance. “As soon as they called, we were like, ‘Yes! We’ll take the fight.’”
So just a couple weeks after beating Silva and forcing his way into the Top 15, Van travelled to Las Vegas, postponing his victory celebration and getting his mother moved into her new house in order to face off with Royval in a pivotal contest where the winner was expected to earn the next championship opportunity.
Deadlocked at one round each heading into the third, Van cranked up the intensity and the output, getting the better of the exchanges down the stretch to claim a unanimous decision win and position himself as the No. 1 contender in the 125-pound weight class. It was a whirlwind month, but none of it ever felt too big for the Houston-based flyweight.
“It don’t matter who I fight — ain’t no fight that is too big for me, too small for me,” he said in his syrupy drawl, smiling. “It just happens that I was fighting the No. 1 guy that night. God is good and we came out on top.
“I always talk about ‘I’ll fight for the title one day,’ this and that,” continued Van, who has won five straight now and is hopeful that he’ll be standing across from champion Alexandre Pantoja before the year is out. “Two years ago I made my debut, and me and my boy Dakota, on our way back home, I was like, ‘Man, in a couple years, we’re gonna be fighting for a title,’ and I just had my debut fight.”
He grinned, recognizing that how prophetic his words turned out to be.
“We manifested this, so for me, it’s normal.”
Joshua Van Scores TKO Win | UFC Fight Night: Ankalaev vs Walker 2
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!
Joshua Van Scores TKO Win | UFC Fight Night: Ankalaev vs Walker 2
/
As much as this was the plan, as much as this was the vision, actually making it all happen and come together is an incredible achievement, and doing it in such a relatively short amount of time only increases the impressiveness even more.
Two years and four days before he faced Royval, Van was a 7-1 newcomer stepping in on short notice to face off with Zhalgas Zhumagulov. Less than a year prior, he was knocked out on in the third round of a competitive fight with veteran Charles Johnson. He’d established himself as an ascending talent in the division and someone with a bright future, without question, but even going into his fight with Silva at the start of June, few would have suggested that the 23-year-old from Myanmar would be challenging for the title by year’s end, and yet here we are
“Man, I always told my mom that I was gonna take care of her one day, and for me to do this thing where I can put her in a position where she ain’t gotta work no more? It’s a blessing for me,” said Van, who turns 24 in October and still profiles as someone with an abundance of room to grow as a competitor. “But it means I gotta keep working harder, get this thing going and keep making money for her.
“It’s a big motivation for me.”
So too is getting the chance to share the Octagon with the champion.
Pantoja is without question the best flyweight on the planet — a well-rounded menace who has elevated his game over his last two outings, shifting from getting stuck in an ultra-competitive battle with unheralded challenger Steve Erceg at UFC 301 to storming through a pair of feared strikers in the last 10 months, submitting Kai Asakura in the second round at UFC 310 before following Van and Royva into the Octagon and tapping out Kai Kara-France in the third at UFC 317 in June.
Fresh off his win over Royval, Van was seated Octagonside, watching the Brazilian intently before joining him in the cage for a respectful, yet electric faceoff between a pair of standouts with fresh adrenaline still coursing through their veins.
“Fighting a guy like Pantoja — he’s got everything I want,” Van said of the champion, who has held the title since the summer of 2023 and earned four consecutive successful title defenses, second most in the division’s history. “He’s the greatest flyweight, and when I beat him, that just makes everything sweeter for me. I like everything that he’s got right now — all the hype, all the (attention) — and I’m even more excited for this fight.”
After having to stick to water at his victory celebration following his win over Silva, Van admitted that returning home after beating Royval lead into some joyous revelry with friends and family, but it wasn’t long before enjoying the past gave way to focusing on the future.
And as someone that logged nine appearances in a touch over two years to begin his UFC career, never going more than six months between a fight and usually turning it around in no more than three, waiting to get back into the Octagon and stand opposite Pantoja has the ascending standout feeling a little out of sorts.
“It’s hard,” he said with a laugh when asked about going nearly three months without a fight and still not being certain when he’ll make the walk again. “Even when I’m in the gym, I’m like, ‘How hard should I work?’ You train, but you don’t wanna train too hard to the point you burn out, so it’s kinda annoying in a way, but that’s what I’ve got my coaches for.
Joshua Van Octagon Interview | UFC 317
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!
Joshua Van Octagon Interview | UFC 317
/
“They’re telling me to ‘calm down’ when I train too hard, but then if I slack off, they’re like, ‘Hey, where you at? You’re supposed to be in the gym learning.’ Right now, we’re working on game plans, starting to get back on that work.”
And the same way he manifested reaching this point, Van is trying to speak the next steps in his journey into existence as well.
“It’s definitely gonna be this year,” he said confidently regarding his championship opportunity. “Houston, Texas — we gonna bring that belt back this year.”
At this point, does anyone want to doubt him?