New UFC flyweight champ Joshua Van has a lot of options in front of him for this first title defense, and it appears he favors one over the others.
Van captured the title with an injury TKO win over longtime champ Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323 in December to cap off an incredible year in the octagon. Currently, Van could wait for Pantoja to return from injury to compete in a rematch, or he could face one of two top contenders for the championship — Manel Kape after his quick dismantling of Brandon Royval in the main event of UFC Vegas 112, or Tatsuro Taira, who became the first to finish Brandon Moreno at UFC 323.
It seems as if Van and Kape might be on a collision course, judging by their back-and-forth Twitter battle, which began on Saturday, and ran into Monday and Tuesday.
“Don’t forget this: you’re only in this position because I broke my foot and you replaced me against Brandon Royval,” Kape wrote to Van after Charles Johnson was stopped by Alex Perez at UFC 324. “Everyone saw what happened once I came back from injury. So stop this rematch bullshit. He knocked u out cold there is no rematch. You’re fighting me. Give me four weeks. That’s all I need to put u back in diapers.”
Van responded with a short and sweet message.
After Van claimed Kape turned down a fight with him, Kape clarified the situation, that appeared to stem after Kayla Harrison was pulled from the UFC 324 co-main event with Amanda Nunes after getting surgery on her injured neck.
“Let me explain what this idiot is talking about,” Kape wrote. “First of all, there was never a contract. Second, the UFC ‘considered’ me fighting Joshua last Saturday to replace the Kayla vs Amanda fight but they told me only one week before. And obviously, there’s no way I’d make weight in one week. … And if I missed weight, I’d be more frozen than Arman Tsarukyan. Let’s do things the right way.”
Van didn’t seem to agree with Kape’s take on the situation, and in fact, accused of flat out denying the fight when it was offered to him.
Kape responded to this tweet early Tuesday morning, and even put out a date: March 7, which is the night UFC 326 takes place, headlined by Max Holloway vs. Charles Oliveira 2 for the BMF title.
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