Daniel Cormier thinks the next UFC flyweight title fight is a no brainer.
Pantoja (30-6 MMA, 14-4 UFC) lost his flyweight title just 26 seconds into his bout with Joshua Van (16-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 323 co-main event after injuring his arm. Cormier called the title fight an all-time letdown and expects Pantoja to be sidelined for quite a while.
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With Tatsuro Taira (18-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in attendance after finishing former champion Brandon Moreno on the same night, Cormier suggests the UFC books the Japanese star against Van as soon as possible.
“Pantoja had been beating everybody, but now he’s going to be out for a bit,” Cormier said on his “Good Guy/Bad Guy” show with Chael Sonnen. “That was a real injury. It will take some time. I believe that Tatsuro Taira, after beating Brandon Moreno and finishing Brandon Moreno, should be fighting for the belt. I looked over at Mick Maynard last night (at UFC 323) and I said to him, ‘Book them tomorrow.’ He goes, ‘What do you mean?’ I go, ‘Tatsuro Taira got hit 10 times against Brandon Moreno, nothing happened.’ They were boxing for about 45 seconds, he goes for a takedown, he ends up in that weird triangle position with Moreno, and they stay there the whole round. … There’s no damage on either side.
“There are fight cards at the beginning of the year where you could say, hey, I know Alexander Volkanovski has a fight on Feb. 1, generally we like to do two title fights on these pay-per-views. Why not make this the second fight (at UFC 325)? Tatsuro Taira and Joshua Van. Van won’t say no, then you turn them around. That’s two months since Pantoja got hurt. Say the winner of that fight needs six months before the next fight, now you’re eight months post Pantoja’s injury. Now you’ve either got him going into the rematch with Joshua Van, or he’s fighting a brand new champion. The whole weight class seems refreshed because it kept moving.”
Prior to losing his belt to Van, Pantoja had defended his title four times against Brandon Royval, Steve Erceg, Kai Asakura, and Kai Kara-France.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC analyst: Joshua Van should defend belt without Alexandre Pantoja
