Preview: UFC 323 ‘Dvalishvili vs. Yan 2’

UFC Flyweight Championship

Alexandre Pantoja (30-5, 14-3 UFC) vs. Joshua Van (15-2, 8-1 UFC)

BETTING ODDS: Pantoja (-245), Van (+200)

It hasn’t quite gotten the plaudits of some past flyweight championship reigns, but Pantoja continues to build a case for himself as an all-timer at 125 pounds, and he gets a chance to start turning back the next generation of fighters here. When the UFC decided to bolster its flyweight roster in 2016 with a season of “The Ultimate Fighter” built around regional champions, Pantoja was the clear standout. Already nearly a decade into his career, the Brazilian combined high-level results with a deserved reputation for entertainment and violence. Pantoja was upset in the season’s semifinals, and despite remaining on the fringes of the championship picture for the entirety of his UFC career, it took surprisingly long for “The Cannibal” to earn his title shot. Pantoja continued his reputation as an aggressive madman who was particularly dangerous on the mat, but his momentum stalled with a 2018 loss to Dustin Ortiz and 2019 defeat to Deiveson Figueiredo, the latter of which was at least an absolute barnburner against another future flyweight champion. Another wrestling-heavy loss to Askar Askarov in 2020 looked like it might close Pantoja’s championship window for good, but he rebounded with a series of victories that made him undeniable as a contender, spoiling Manel Kape’s UFC debut before quickly blowing through Brandon Royval and Alex Perez. That set him up for a 2023 title challenge against old rival Brandon Moreno. The two had met on “The Ultimate Fighter” and earlier in their UFC careers, with Pantoja clearly coming out on top in both fights. The trilogy fight was the closest of the bunch but still resulted in a Pantoja victory after a 25-minute war, culminating over a decade and a half of hard work and finally giving the Brazilian his moment in the sun. Pantoja’s title reign got off to a bit of a disappointing start given his reputation for action. His first defense against Royval was surprisingly focused around control-heavy wrestling, and while his next fight against Steve Erceg was much more entertaining, it was a surprisingly close victory against one of the lesser-known title challengers in recent memory. However, Pantoja has turned the corner and finally earned himself some greater recognition, with his last two title defenses against Kai Asakura and Kai Kara-France each showing the type of fast-paced dominance that has marked the peaks of his career. Despite Pantoja’s tenure, there’s still some surprisingly fresh matchups for him on the horizon. None might be better than this one against Van, who looks to complete a shockingly quick ascent.

Van was clearly the bluest of blue-chip prospects when the UFC picked him up in 2023. Just 21 years old at the time, Van was a violent knockout artist from the jump and was quickly developing an effective wrestling game, continuing his trend of improving greatly from fight to fight. Van’s rate of improvement was prodigious to a point that’s just not seen all that often in this era of mixed martial arts. He packed eight fights into a 14-month regional career, and almost every bout showed some new wrinkle that suggested “The Fearless” was destined for title contention at the very worst. Van made his UFC debut in June 2023 and has kept things up in just about every aspect, continuing his upward ascent while also keeping a particularly active schedule by current standards. Van packed nine UFC fights into two years prior to this title bout, and that includes a six-month stretch in early 2024 where his opponents kept getting injured. Van’s lone loss in the UFC, a June 2024 knockout to Charles Johnson, showed one of the main flaws in his approach. He’s a fighter who builds over the course of his fights and feels opponents out through aggression, often resulting in his eating unnecessary offense that, in this case, managed to catch him cold. Any worries that could be a fatal flaw were quickly dispelled. Van was back two months later to get back in the win column and kept racking up win after win. This all led to Van’s victory over Royval in June—a fairly amazing bit of business. Van had fought three weeks prior and put together the best performance of his career against his toughest opponent to date, outmaneuvering and adapting to Royval’s combination of awkward length and fast-paced output. However, this does present a different challenge. Much has been made of Van reportedly not training wrestling in earnest until about three years ago, and that phase of his game figures to get immediately tested against Pantoja, who has been more intentional about leaning on those weapons early on in his most recent fights. Given that reality, it wouldn’t be a shock if Pantoja makes a statement that Van isn’t quite ready for championship glory. That could be particularly true in the sense that if the champion defends, he’s likely to do so early since that’s where he’s best and how much Van tends to improve over the course of his fights. Pantoja’s cardio is inconsistent, as he tires often over the course of his fights but is also quite excellent at fighting through that exhaustion; and given Van’s combination of adaptability and pace, this might be one of the rare matchups where that winds up as a liability for “The Cannibal” by the championship rounds. Considering Van’s current trajectory of improvement, he might be an exponentially better fighter after just a six-month layoff, so the call is that the challenger can survive early and take over late. Expectations are high that this could be one of the better fights of the year and should continue to improve each man’s stock. The pick is Van via decision.

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Dvalishvili vs. Yan
Pantoja vs. Van
Taira vs. Moreno
Talbott vs. Cejudo
Blachowicz vs. Guskov
The Prelims