After his dominant title defense at UFC 317, what’s next for Alexandre Pantoja?

In the co-main event this past weekend at UFC 317, the flyweight title was on the line. Alexandre Pantoja (30-5) was looking for his fourth title defense as he took on the division’s biggest knockout threat in New Zealand’s Kai Kara-France (25-12).

Pantoja has really turned into a different animal over the past few years. Starting in 2021, Pantoja won three big fights in a row which led him to a title fight with Brandon Moreno. Pantoja won that fight against Moreno and then defeated Brandon Royval, Steve Erceg, and Kai Asakura leading up to Saturday night. He’s become one of the P4P best in the world.

Still, there was a lot of danger for him at UFC 317 with the power of Kai Kara-France. However, he showed that there are levels to this and that Kara-France was no where near his level. Pantoja took down the challenger in the first round and really dominated there. In the second round, he was in control as well, but Kai Kara-France was not being dominated as bad.

Right when you started thinking that maybe KKF could make something happen, Pantoja took him down immediately to start the third round. He got to his back right away and locked in a choke. The challenger fought as long as he could before tapping leading to the fourth successful UFC title defense for Alexandre Pantoja.

What’s next after UFC 317?

It seems pretty clear as to what’s next for Alexandre Pantoja after Saturday night. Earlier in the evening, Joshua Van won a war against Brandon Royval in a fight that might go down as fight of the year. After Van won, the UFC brought him back out to sit by the cage and after Pantoja picked up the win, the 23-year-old entered the cage and faced off with Pantoja.

Pantoja wants to return in December and it’s clear as day that Joshua Van will be his next challenger. The only thing that could get in the way is a potential injury to Van. If that were to happen, the UFC could look to former champion Brandon Moreno who they showed multiple times during the co-main event. Since his loss to Brandon Royval last year, Moreno has bounced back well with wins over Amir Albazi and Steve Erceg.