Joshua Van wasn't happy with the way he won his title, but he absolutely earned it at UFC 328

His first defense against Tatsuro Taira was one of the fights I was looking forward to most. If you read my preview or listened to the podcast we did for UFC 328, I had that pegged as "Fight of the Night" since its booking. The way they went at it, almost guaranteed they'll fight again.

Why?

The stoppage

I didn't agree with it.

Other fighters on this card took damage, seemed to need a stoppage, and kept going. Jon Anik even said after the stoppage, something along the lines, because of the title on the line, it should have kept going.

I know fighter safety matters a lot, but Taira and his dispute over the stoppage clearly showed he would have rather been finished definitively than having the ref step in.

I'm not just writing that because I had him picked to win, either.

He really wanted to bring the title back to Japan.

They'll book them again, and they'll headline.

Title earned

They ran a promo ahead of the fight, where they showed Van wasn't happy with the way he won the title.

He said it was something he had to get over before he started camp for this fight. I agreed with him and said as much when we did our preview on Coast-2-Coast Combat Hour. So, this fight is the case where the champ is truly the champ after their first title defense.

He was already fun to watch.

Now, he'll have fighters gunning for him. It looks like Alexandre Pantoja will be next, based on what Dana White said in the post-fight press conference. Which is deserved, but how well has he recovered from the elbow injury?

We'll see...

...either way. If you're taking notes, Van's going to be a busy man.

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