Manel Kape thinks he knows when his title shot arrives. In an interview with Daniel Cormier, reported by MiddleEasy, the flyweight contender said he expects to challenge champion Joshua Van in January. He also made clear that a fight with Kai Kara-France is still something he wants.
The UFC hasn’t announced Van vs. Kape, and the sources don’t include a date, a venue or an event number for January. For now this is Kape’s projection, and it should be treated that way until the promotion puts it on a poster.
The projection holds up on paper. The UFC Meta Rankings were updated on Oct. 13 after UFC Vegas 122, and Kape sits at No. 1 at 125 pounds, directly behind Van. Alexandre Pantoja is No. 2, followed by Brandon Royval, Tatsuro Taira and Asu Almabayev. Kara-France doesn’t appear in that top 15, which makes the second half of Kape’s plan more interesting than the first. The interview summary doesn’t explain how he sequences the two fights, so the safest reading is that Van comes first and Kara-France stays on his list.
The champion he’s chasing
Van’s last outing was a title defense against Pantoja. According to Yahoo Sports’ pound-for-pound rankings, which moved Van up to ninth afterward, Pantoja landed five takedowns. Most people saw that as his path to the belt. It didn’t pay off. Van took over the striking exchanges late in the fight, and the judges gave it to the champion. That is the profile of a fighter who adjusts during a fight instead of surviving it, and Kape should be studying exactly that.
There’s another thread tied to the champion. Zhalgas Zhumagulov, who is trying to get back to the UFC, lost a split decision to Van. That came up in a Bloody Elbow interview with David Dvorak, who listed Kape among his past opponents while describing Zhumagulov as the hardest puncher he’s faced. That’s a side story. It does show that the people lining up to fight Van are a dangerous group.
What’s next
The UFC’s next stop is Fight Night 291 in Edmonton on Oct. 17, headlined by Joaquin Buckley vs. Mike Malott. After that come UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 24 and UFC 335 in Las Vegas on Dec. 12. None of those cards involve the flyweight title picture. That leaves early 2027 open for the division, which fits Kape’s timeline.
My take is that Kape is right to push for January, and the UFC would be smart to give it to him. He’s the top-ranked challenger, Pantoja just had his chance and lost, and making the No. 1 contender wait would only produce more title-picture confusion that flyweight doesn’t need. The Kara-France talk is the part I’d watch. If Kape is already naming his next opponent before he’s signed for the belt, either he’s very confident or he’s leaving himself a fallback in case January falls through. I’d lean toward confidence. I also think Van, based on how he solved Pantoja late, is a much harder problem than Kape is letting on. If the fight gets booked, I’m picking Van to hold the belt.
