UFC 331: Van turns back Pantoja to retain flyweight title

LOS ANGELES — Joshua Van turned away a determined former champion to keep his gold.

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The flyweight champ delivered stiff stand-up and defended enough takedowns over five rounds to come away with the unanimous-decision victory in the UFC 331 main event Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.

The judges scored it 49-46, 49-47, 50-45 for the 25-year-old phenom, who has now won eight in a row and looks to be on an insurmountable run in the 125-pound division.

In their first go-around, the Houston striker became the second-youngest champion in UFC history when Pantoja suffered a dislocated elbow just 26 seconds into their title bout at UFC 323 in December.

With Pantoja sidelined, Van accepted the challenge of Tatsuro Taira in May, coming away with a fifth-round TKO in a classic bout at UFC 328.

Pantoja matched Van’s aggression to start the fight, with Van showing an edge in being the quicker striker.

Pantoja was perturbed in the second round when his left eyebrow was cut by a Van headbutt, which was verified by replays. The blood leaked all fight, but not seemingly enough to affect the challenger’s vision.

In the third round, Van stayed active, piecing up Pantoja, who egged the champion on.

Despite the scorecards, the bout appeared even going into the final five minutes after Pantoja took the champ down and held position for much of the fourth round.

In the fifth round, Van looked to be the fresher fighter, dropping the 36-year-old Pantoja and peppering the Brazilian with combinations. As the fight ended, Pantoja slumped against the cage on one side while Van scaled it with his arms raised on another side.

It was a telling picture and the judges overwhelmingly saw it for the only Burmese champion in UFC history.

Tsarukyan soars

Arman Tsarukyan stamped his place as the next candidate for a lightweight title fight. And he did it in the most surprising way.

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The Armenian 155-pounder cracked knockout artist Mauricio Ruffy with a left elbow to the cheek, then gave him one more for good measure en route to a first-round knockout.

Ruffy (14-3), who had knocked out 13 of his 14 vanquished opponents, might have been out after the first elbow, his face slumping onto Tsarukyan’s shoulder. But Tsarukyan (24-3), with a partisan crowd with many Armenian fans backing him, held him up and threw a right elbow, his forearm catching Ruffy on his way down.

Referee Jason Herzog called off the fight with four seconds left in the round.

Many felt Tsarukyan would have to implement his superior wrestling to neutralize Ruffy, but he proved how well-rounded he is.

Ruffy still had his moments, especially cracking Tsarukyan and causing a welt under his left eye. By the time the fight was over, the swelling had grown to the point that a mid-round inspection by the ring doctor would not have been a surprise.

Tsarukyan, who has now won six in a row, can set his sights on 155-pound champion Justin Gaethje, who was sitting cageside three months after pulverizing and winning the title from then-champion Ilia Topuria.

Pitbull back on track

Patricio Pitbull needed a win and encountered an opponent willing to trade and bang.

The former two-division Bellator champion had yet to find his way in the UFC, but a right hand over the top staggered Dooho Choi and was the beginning of the end in the first round of their featherweight fight.

Choi, known as the Korean Superboy, has developed a reputation for engaging in mind-boggling scraps – one so incredible that he and Cub Swanson were inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame for their 2019 brawl.

It was just the foe for Pitbull (38-9), who was 1-2 in the UFC. The Brazilian kept popping Choi (17-5-1), who proved game and took damage and delivered his own until the fateful punch that almost knocked him down before he reeled to his right and stayed upright.

Pitbull took care of that, dropped Choi and continued with more ground-and-pound, earning the stoppage at 3:28 of the opening round.

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More to come on this story.