Daniel Cunningham
This past Saturday we found out that this weekend’s co-main event at UFC 327 was off. The flyweight title fight between Joshua Van (16-2) and top contender Tatsuro Taira (18-1) was pulled from this upcoming week’s card due to an injury to the champion Van.
However, we did get some fortunate news. The injury isn’t incredibly serious and the fight is shifting back a month. UFC 328 goes down on May 9th in Newark and now this flyweight title fight will serve as the new co-main event. With this addition to 328, it’s easily the best card of the year thus far in my opinion.
This will be Van’s first title defense after he won the belt back in December. Van dethroned longtime champion Alexandre Pantoja after Pantoja suffered an injury just seconds into the fight.
The win capped off an incredible year by Van which saw him go from being unranked to the champion. Now, he’ll take on top contender Tatsuro Taira.
Taira suffered his lone loss back in 2024 in a split decision against former title challenger Brandon Royval. Since then, he’s won back-to-back fights over Hyun Sung Park and then he became the first man to finish former UFC champion Brandon Moreno. That performance was enough to earn him a crack at the title.
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