Joshua Van won the UFC flyweight championship in unfortunate fashion at UFC 323 when Alexandre Pantoja injured his arm after throwing a head kick and being pushed to the ground by Van this past December in Las Vegas, but rising flyweight Charles Johnson gives his former opponent all the props.
“InnerG”, who beat Van by third-round knockout back in 2024, won’t call Van’s title victory a fluke nor put an asterisk next to his record.
“He’s the champion. He has the belt,” Johnson told MMA Fighting. “There’s no asterisk. He put himself in that position, he’s the champion. What happened was unfortunate, but he is the champion and that’s just what it is. So if people want to say stuff about him, oh well, you can be upset about it but he put himself in that position and Pantoja arm didn’t make it out, right? It just is what it is. It’s nothing to celebrate or nothing to be upset about, right? For Joshua Van, it’s a lot to celebrate. You achieved the goal that you were reaching even though it didn’t happen the way you thought it would.
“He had a lot of great moments in every fight before that fight leading up to him winning the belt, so he has a lot to be proud of. When you go into the future and you look at his resume, never going to have an asterisk. It’s just going to say he beat Pantoja in 30 seconds, 40 seconds, however long it was. It is what it is, right? The paper is always going to say champion, no matter what happens. [Like] a guy like me who gets to say, yeah, I knocked that guy out. That’s on paper, too. So I can hold my cap to that and keep focused on and get into the title, which he’s been able to do. It’s all good things, it’s all good problems as my coaches say. And I’m excited about it.”
Having said that, from a athletic point of view, the match didn’t show anything about either Van or Pantoja.
“I think that the biggest thing you can take away from the fight is just give yourself an opportunity to win,” Johnson said. “Joshua gave himself every opportunity to win by winning every fight leading up to that and putting himself in that moment. And whatever happened, happened. Pantoja’s arm failed him that night and he fell and that was due to Joshua pushing him after he threw a kick. He was just in the right moment in place and time as he has been his whole career and he’s been rewarded for it. That’s kudos to him, staying ready, staying healthy and just going after taking risks and winning fights. It’s not much to take away from the fight itself, but you can take a lot from the journey that Josh took there and him trying to pave his way for his family and whatever else he’s doing.”
“As far as Pantoja goes, man, he’s a champion,” he continued. “He’s already preparing to come back, he’s going to come back with a vengeance. He’s one of the most elite and skilled fighters in all of the promotions so he’ll definitely be ready to go in the next few months. I’m excited to see what happens with the promotion and with the ranking, and I think that everyone has something to be excited about when those types of things happen in fights because while it’s unfortunate for Pantoja, it also gives him an opportunity to unravel a new layer of himself and give him more to go for that next goal. If you look at things as a blessing, as opposed to other ways, many times you can find some positivity out of it and find yourself in a better position than when you started.”
Johnson fought three times since beating Van at UFC Denver, wins over Sumudaerji and Lone’er Kavanagh with a decision setback to Ramazan Temirov in between — he considers himself to be on a six-fight winning streak since Temirov failed a drug three months after their match. Johnson aims to get closer to a shot at the gold with a win over Alex Perez at UFC 324, scheduled for Jan. 24 in Las Vegas, even though “I’ve decided that I won’t think about that”.
“I want to just think about performing and getting finishes,” Johnson said. “I wrote in my journal that my main focus is breaking records in this promotion and so now I’m focused on getting the most finishes in the division. I think it’s seven, so that’s a number that I’m focused on getting to. And whatever happens in route to that, I’ll be happy with. And definitely higher than everything is fighting for a world title and winning a world title, that’s the main goal. But until I get that opportunity, I just want to focus on each fight and getting finishes and making moments that I can be very proud of when I’m done fighting in a few years and then fans can say Charles Johnson was one of the best flyweights in the UFC ever.”
Perez is a longtime veteran in the flyweight division but dropped five of his past six, accumulating defeating since challenging Deiveson Figueiredo for the belt in November 2020. The other losses were to athletes in the elite of the division — Alexandre Pantoja, Muhammad Mokaev, Tatsuro Taira and Asu Albumayev —, and Johnson doesn’t feel his opponent’s job is on the line at UFC 324.
“Honestly, I don’t think he’s in a terrible position with the matchmakers,” Johnson said. “He took this fight as soon as they called him with it, they called him immediately after his last fight. I don’t think, regardless of what happens, whether he wins or loses — we don’t know what they want to do, but given his tenure here with the UFC, I don’t think he’s in jeopardy of losing his job losing to me. I think, you know, he’s definitely in a position where he wants that win.
“He’s coming off a couple of tough losses where he was, in my opinion, winning those fights. Fighting at the highest level, we’ve all been in these type of situations where maybe things don’t go your way even though you’re right there, you’re doing everything right and something happens. He needs some stuff to go his way a little bit. He’s hoping that happens with me, but it’s my job to take that opportunity away from him and that’s all I’m focused on.
“I’ve been in his shoes when I fought Azat Maksum, I was on a three-fight losing streak, lost a few short-notice, very close fights against guys that I felt I was better than, and with full-camps maybe I would have beat them, but I didn’t beat them on those nights. So when I walked in the cage against Azat Maksum I knew I needed to win, and I didn’t have the tenure or the resume or the status that Alex has going into this. So I say all that to say that he’s in a position where he’s got to make the most of it and so do I.”
In the end, as much as he wishes a great future for Perez in the sport, Johnson vows to make his skid longer — and for the sake of his own title hopes, that the post-fight narrative is centered around how good he has looked at UFC 324 rather than Perez’s decline.
“Hopefully they don’t try to throw salt on the wounds of Alex,” Johnson said. “He’ll get plenty of opinions thrown at him whether he goes out there and performs well or he doesn’t. But knowing Alex, that won’t deter him. He’s a great fighter, he’s a great guy, so he’s going to put his head down and keep working hard regardless of what happens after the fight. For us as fighters, that’s how we live. And the commentators and everyone else, it’s their job to create a narrative, it’s their job to create a talking point and they’ll do that. But that doesn’t change anything on what he’s been able to accomplish as a fighter.
“I really do hope that with this performance, as always, I go out there and I show well for myself and hopefully. Hopefully the way that people are speaking puts me in a light where people can see that I can contend for a title, I am right there with the best, the elite of this division, and I feel like I’m the best. And I’m training like I’m the best, and I’m preparing like I’m the best. I’m very excited about that opportunity to show everyone again.”
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