Men's Flyweight · 125 lb
Joshua Van is flyweight champion after ending Alexandre Pantoja's long reign and finishing Tatsuro Taira. UFC 331 puts the rematch on in Los Angeles this Saturday — and Manel Kape's claim is still noise without a date.
Joshua Van (17-2) is the UFC flyweight champion, and the rematch that defines the class is already fight week.
He took the belt from Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323 on a first-round TKO-injury finish — the end of a long Pantoja reign. He followed it with a title TKO of Tatsuro Taira at UFC 328. Two championship nights, two finishes. The division that spent years orbiting Pantoja now has a new name on the belt and an immediate rematch on the calendar.
Crypto.com UFC 331 in Los Angeles on Saturday, Sept. 19, is Van versus Pantoja II for the flyweight title. Pantoja is the clearest rematch case in the division. If Van wins again, the early-reign skeptics lose their loudest line; if Pantoja takes it back, 125 flips overnight. Fight week is a numbered-card headliner, a former long-reign champion reclaiming what he lost in under a minute, and a young titleholder who has finished every championship opponent so far.
Anyone still reading UFC.com athlete pages without the fight recap should know Pantoja's page has historically mislabeled the Van fight as a win. The UFC 323 recap is the record — Van is the champion who stopped him.
Manel Kape is ranked No. 2 — knockout heat, public campaigning, still without a title date. Brandon Royval is No. 3, in the conversation but not on the title card. Brandon Moreno is mid-board after a split-decision win over Joseph Morales at Noche UFC; that kept him ranked, not next in line for the belt. After Saturday the queue is straightforward: Pantoja either reclaims the strap or drops into the rematch-loss lane, and Kape remains the loudest name waiting for a printed challenge.
On Oct. 24 at UFC 333, Lone'er Kavanagh versus Ramazan Temirov is flyweight depth on the same card as the featherweight and bantamweight title fights — useful for the next tier, separate from who leaves Los Angeles with the belt.
Summary updated Sep 14, 2026
Crypto.com UFC 331 lands Saturday, Sept. 19, in Los Angeles with a flyweight title rematch unfinished business demanded — and a five-round lightweight co-main fighters are selling harder than Dana White will.
Three Noche results reshaped the talk at featherweight, women’s flyweight, and men’s flyweight — without rewriting the Octagon calendar at UFC 331, 332, and 333.