MMA Fighting has UFC 331 results for the Van vs. Pantoja 2 fight card, live blogs of the entire main card, and more from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Calif., on Saturday night.
In the main event, UFC flyweight champion Joshua Van defends his title against former UFC champion Alexandre Pantoja in a rematch.
Pantoja lost the title against Van via injury at UFC 323 this past December. The 36-year-old Pantoja (30-6) suffered a dislocated elbow 26 seconds into the fight, and Van won by TKO.
‘As an athlete, yes, I have a TKO loss on my record,’ Pantoja told ESPN. ‘I’ve never lost by TKO or submission before. Nobody had ever finished me. Now, I have that. But personally, as a man? No. I don’t believe I have a loss to him.’
Pantoja won the title against Brandon Moreno in 2023 and defended the belt four times before meeting Van. He was among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world at the time.
Van, 24, has embraced the narrative — even while cementing himself as the undisputed champion. His first title defense against Tatsuro Taira in May made discrediting him harder. Taira’s ground game posed a real threat to Van, but he ultimately knocked out the Japanese challenger in the fifth round of a matchup that earned fight of the night honors at UFC 328.
Arman Tsarukyan makes his long-awaited return to the UFC Octagon when he squares off against Mauricio Ruffy in a pivotal lightweight contest. Tsarukyan has won five straight fights, while Ruffy has won four of his past five fights.
Tsarukyan was labeled a snubbed man after it was announced that Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett would headline the first UFC card of 2026 with the No. 1 lightweight contender status at stake. In the absence of an obvious UFC fight to take, Tsarukyan has wrestled competitively — mostly in RAF — 10 times in 2026. This is the longest layoff of his UFC career, but his brand has grown more during that time off than from any single fight.
Any MMA prospect would almost certainly switch places with 26-year-old UFC newcomer Gable Steveson. When you’re an Olympic gold medal wrestler, and one of the most touted heavyweight prospects in MMA history, certain opportunities are going to come to you that others aren’t afforded. For his second UFC appearance (and fifth pro fight overall), he’ll take on Sean Sharaf, a 33-year-old with two knockout losses in his first two UFC fights.
The main card will kick off with a heavyweight fight between super prospect Gable Steveson and huge underdog Sean Sharaf, and a light heavyweight clash pitting veteran contender Alonzo Menifield against unbeaten prospect Iwo Baraniewski.
Before we get to that, we’ll get a fan-friendly featherweight fight between former Bellator champ Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire and ‘The Korean Superboy’ Doo Ho Choi.
If Alexandre Pantoja is searching for role models to inspire this weekend’s quest to reclaim the championship he lost suddenly and painfully last December, he would be wise to look beyond recent history. Within the past two weeks, two of the UFC’s 11 champs — women’s flyweight Valentina Shevchenko and heavyweight Tom Aspinall — vacated their titles because of health issues.
Before them, the most recent champions to lose their titles to injuries did not fare well upon their returns. In November 2022, Jiří Procházka vacated the UFC light heavyweight title after hurting his shoulder in training. His successor was Jamahal Hill, who just months after winning the vacant title had to vacate it himself after rupturing an Achilles.
For a success story, Pantoja must look deeper into UFC championship history to the brutal health issues overcome by Dominick Cruz. Finally, in February 2016 — more than four years after his last title fight — Cruz challenged TJ Dillashaw for the belt and won a split decision. ‘I had to show something to myself,’ Cruz said afterward. ‘That’s what this was.’
ESPN’s Jeff Wagenheim contributed to this story.
