Fast facts
- Division: Flyweight (UFC champion)
- Record: 18-2
- Nationality: Burmese and American, born in Myanmar
- Team/gym: 4oz. Fight Club
- Notable wins: Alexandre Pantoja (twice), Tatsuro Taira, Brandon Royval, Bruno Gustavo da Silva, Rei Tsuruya
In late June 2025, Manel Kape broke his foot. That injury pulled him out of a fight with Brandon Royval at UFC 317, and the UFC needed someone willing to take a former title challenger on three weeks’ notice. Joshua Van had fought 21 days earlier. He said yes anyway, and almost everything that has happened to him since traces back to that phone call.
Now, according to a report from Kevin (@realkevink) on X citing sources, Van will defend the UFC flyweight title against Kape at UFC 336 on January 30. The promotion hasn’t announced it. If it holds, the man who got the break finally meets the man whose bad luck handed it to him.
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From Hakha to Houston
Van was born Joshua Van Bawi Thawng on October 10, 2001, in Hakha, in the Chin State of western Myanmar, into a family with five siblings. The country was torn by military and political conflict, and when he was 10 his family left for Malaysia. Two years later, in 2013, they moved again, this time to Houston. He was 12.
His father died in 2017. As of July 2025 he was still living with his mother. He is a Christian, and he has told several outlets that he eats McDonald’s for breakfast every morning, training camp included, which is either the most relatable thing a world champion has ever admitted or a quiet insult to every nutritionist in the sport.
He didn’t start fighting as a prodigy with a decade of junior tournaments behind him. His amateur debut came in December 2020, when he was 19. He went 4-0 with two knockouts for Fury FC, the Texas regional promotion, then turned pro in October 2021 and stayed with Fury for his entire pre-UFC run. He went 7-1 there, and on December 18, 2022, he headlined Fury FC 72 and submitted Cleveland McLean in Round 2 to take the promotion’s flyweight belt.
That’s a short apprenticeship. Fury FC built him, and the people in those Houston rooms deserve more of the credit than they’ll ever get on a broadcast.
The call-up and the stumble
Van was booked for Dana White’s Contender Series on August 8, 2023, against Kevin Borjas. He never needed the audition. The UFC pulled him straight onto UFC on ABC 5 on June 24, 2023, against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, which made him the first fighter from Myanmar to sign with the promotion. He won a split decision.
He beat Borjas anyway, by unanimous decision at UFC 295 that November, then stopped Felipe Bunes in Round 2 in January 2024 as a replacement for Denys Bondar. Then came a frustrating stretch of nothing. Lucas Rocha got hurt. Su Mudaerji pulled out. The reshuffle sent him toward Tagir Ulanbekov, who weighed in at 129.5 pounds, three and a half over the non-title limit, and that bout was scrapped too.
When he finally fought again, on July 13, 2024, Charles Johnson knocked him out in Round 3. It remains his only UFC loss.
What he did next tells you more about him than any highlight. Two months later he was back at UFC 306, again as a replacement (this time for Borjas), and he beat Édgar Cháirez by unanimous decision. He followed with decisions over Cody Durden at UFC 310 and Rei Tsuruya, the Road to UFC Season 2 flyweight winner, at UFC 313.
Three weeks in June
The Bruno Gustavo da Silva fight was supposed to happen at UFC 313 before da Silva withdrew. It was rebooked for UFC 316 on June 7, 2025, and Van stopped him late in Round 3.
Then Kape’s foot gave out, and Van took Royval on June 28. The two of them landed a combined 419 significant strikes, a record for both a three-round UFC fight and a flyweight bout. Van won a unanimous decision, picked up his first Fight of the Night bonus, and the fight was later named Fight of the Year at the 17th Annual World MMA Awards.
That volume is the clearest window into how he fights. He is willing to stand in the pocket with dangerous people for 15 minutes and keep throwing. Petesy, writing in Yahoo Sports’ UFC 333 preview, lumped him in with Lone’er Kavanagh as fighters who are “incapable of being in a bad fight,” and the bonus checks back that up: three Fight of the Night awards, the last two worth $100,000 each.
Champion, with an asterisk he erased himself
Van met Alexandre Pantoja for the belt at UFC 323 on December 6, 2025, and it ended in a way nobody wanted. Twenty-six seconds into Round 1, Van caught a Pantoja kick, Pantoja fell, injured his arm hitting the canvas, and the fight was waved off as a TKO.
The history was real all the same. At 24, Van became the second-youngest champion in UFC history behind Jon Jones, the first UFC champion born in the 2000s, and the UFC’s first Asian-born male champion.
The first defense, against Tatsuro Taira, was set for UFC 327 on April 11, 2026, until a knee injury forced Van out. It moved to UFC 328 on May 9, the co-main event under Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland, and Van stopped Taira in Round 5. Then he gave Pantoja the rematch at UFC 331 on September 19 and won a unanimous decision, which put to rest any lingering talk about that strange first night. That was three title fight wins in 10 months.
As of September 22, he was No. 6 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings.
The champ who likes his contract
Van has also become an unusual voice on fighter pay. Speaking to Outta Pocket, in comments reported by MMA Fighting, he sided with Dana White in the boss’s public fight with Strickland, saying the middleweight champion should have asked to renegotiate privately instead of airing it on social media. He agreed fighters should earn more, but he sounded content with his own deal.
“I’m getting paid good,” Van said with a laugh. “I start from zero to now, the UFC literally made me where I’m at, gave me everything that I got right now.”
You can argue with the politics. You can’t really argue with where he’s coming from. A kid who left Chin State at 10 measures “zero” differently than most.
What’s next
Kape sits No. 1 in MMA Mania’s flyweight Meta Rankings, ahead of Pantoja, Royval and Taira, three men Van has already beaten. Ramazan Temirov told Yahoo Sports that a win at UFC 333 would lay the groundwork for a Van title fight, and Kavanagh, his opponent there, is ranked No. 6. The line is forming.
Kape goes first, if the report is right. Nineteen months after a broken foot sent Joshua Van into the biggest fight of his life, Kape gets his own turn across from him on January 30.
