Joshua Van - Alexandre Pantoja: betting tip (cf 1.78) and bets on the fight

Current form

Joshua Wang is approaching the main fight of the evening on an impressive seven-win streak. Moreover, he issued the last two ahead of schedule. The first confrontation between Wang and Pantoja took place in December 2025. The fight lasted only 26 seconds. Pantoja unsuccessfully extended his arm during the fall and was injured, after which the fight ended. As a result, Wang became the UFC champion, although the title night turned out to be completely different from how it was imagined in advance.

After winning the belt, Joshua defended himself and received exactly the exam that a champion should take. In a duel with Tatsuro Taira, the representative of Myanmar turned out to be noticeably stronger and ended the meeting with a technical knockout in the fifth round. First, Wang sent his opponent a frontal kick to the body, and then finished him off. Prior to that, Joshua's winning streak included Brandon Royal, Bruno Silva, Ri Tsuruya, Cody Durden, and Edgar Chaires. He passed Royval by unanimous decision, stopped Silva in the third round, and won the rest of the fights on points.

Wang's professional path to the UFC was quite short. He competed in the Fury Fighting Championship, where he became champion in 2022, after which he almost immediately received a contract with the largest organization in the world. The 24-year-old fighter currently has 21 wins and two losses. He knocked out his opponents 11 times, won eight victories by judges' decisions and two more by submission. At the same time, Joshua managed to collect an impressive collection of bonuses and various awards from the UFC and specialized publications. He is also not an accidental guest on the ground floor: Wang holds a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Separately, it is worth paying attention to his amount of work in the rack. In his fight with Tyra, Joshua landed 131 significant blows against his opponent's 55. This is the fifth time in his career when Wang overcomes the mark of one hundred significant hits in one fight. However, not everyone managed to respond in kind. Only Zhalgas Zhumagulov and Brandon Royal were able to deliver more than 100 accurate blows in duels with Wang. 

Current form

Alexandre Pantoja won the UFC championship belt in July 2023, when he defeated Brandon Moreno by split decision. After that, the Brazilian successfully defended the title four times. His list of wins includes Brandon Royal, Steve Erceg, Kai Asakura and Kai Cara-France. Pantoja looked especially convincing in his fights with Asakura and Cara-France. In both cases, the Brazilian managed to finish the meeting ahead of schedule, and used one of his main trump cards — work in the stalls. He caught Asakura with a backhand choke in the second round, and then dealt with Cara-France in a similar way.

In the first fight with Wang, Pantoja was considered by many to be the obvious favorite. But since then, Joshua has managed to noticeably improve. This became especially clear after his meeting with Tyra. The champion demonstrated not only high activity in the stand, but also fairly reliable protection against transfers to the stalls and attempts to perform a painful or suffocating technique.

Pantoja is certainly more dangerous than Taira in percussion techniques. The Brazilian has serious experience, knows how to change the distance and is able to punish an opponent for a mistake. But in clean footwork, Van looks no less convincing. His average is 8.43 significant strokes per minute, which is one of the best results in the UFC. At the same time, Joshua does not turn the battle into a meaningless artillery cannonade: the accuracy of his significant strikes is 57%, and the defense is 58%. Pantoja joined the UFC in 2017 after winning the RFA vs. Legacy. The Brazilian has been competing in professional MMA since 2007. During this time, he managed to have a lot of fights and win the championship title even before joining the UFC. His track record included RFA, Shooto Brazil, and Watch Out Combat Show.

The 36-year-old Pantoja currently has 30 wins and six losses. He won eight victories by knockout, ten by judges' decisions, and forced his opponents to give up 12 more times. The Brazilian has also repeatedly received UFC bonuses and various awards from leading publications. Unlike Wang, Pantoja has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In addition, he has experience in Thai boxing.