Joshua Van Keeps Trolling Pantoja Before Their UFC 331 Rematch

The first time Joshua Van and Alexandre Pantoja shared a cage, everyone kept it polite. The rematch at UFC 331 in Los Angeles is a different animal, and Van has spent the week leaning into it — telling reporters at Wednesday's media day that, as far as he's concerned, he's Pantoja's dad and the Brazilian's trash talk has earned him a smack.

That line was a direct shot back at Pantoja (30-6, with 12 submissions and a #1 ranking), who claimed at the pre-fight presser that Dana White physically stopped him from slapping Van, and that in his era disrespect like this gets you disciplined by a parent. Van's response was to flip the framing entirely. The two nearly came to blows at the podium — a long way from the respectful goodbyes after their first meeting.

That first meeting is the whole problem. Pantoja suffered a freak injury seconds into the fight, couldn't continue, and Van walked away with the flyweight belt in a way that satisfied nobody. It's the kind of ending that guarantees a rematch and guarantees resentment.

Van's Not Buying the Act

Van's read is simple: Pantoja is bitter about losing the top spot and is now trying to cast himself as the good guy while painting Van as the villain. Van pointed to the Countdown footage, where Pantoja insists the clip of him reaching for his arm was actually him waving the fight off. Van thinks that's revisionism, and he thinks Pantoja knows it.

What's telling is how little Van seems to care about winning the war of words. He said Pantoja doesn't even believe half of what he's saying, and that calling it out is what actually gets under the former champ's skin. His plan for the week is to keep being himself, since Pantoja clearly can't stand him either way.

Van's earned some of that swagger. Since taking the title he defended it against Tatsuro Taira in one of 2025's better fights, so he's not walking in as a paper champion who lucked into a belt. Saturday settles whether the first result was a fluke or a passing of the torch — and Van sounds like a man who already knows the answer.

The card gives the night plenty of stakes beyond the main event. Arman Tsarukyan (23-3), ranked #2 at lightweight and coming off an arm-triangle finish of Dan Hooker, features on the same bill with title-shot implications hanging over his bout. But the story people are talking about is the one at the top, where two men who genuinely dislike each other finally get to fix it.