Joshua Van responds to Muhammad Mokaev’s confident retirement ultimatum

Joshua Van is extremely amused by Muhammad Mokaev’s recent comments.

This past May, Joshua Van put a lot of fan criticism behind him when he defended his flyweight title against Tatsuro Taira in what was a Fight of the Year contender.

Fans were seemingly unhappy with ‘The Fearless’ for the way in which he celebrated his title win over Alexandre Pantoja just a few months prior, as Pantoja went down injured early in their fight.

Despite that, the 24-year-old is now growing in popularity, and he is finding himself on the end of several callouts because of his position in the division.

Joshua Van laughs off Muhammad Mokaev’s recent callout

Following his win over the Japanese star, the most likely fight for ‘The Fearless’ next is a rematch against the former champion, Pantoja.

Despite that, there is a flyweight outside of the organisation that is calling for a return to the UFC for a fight against Van.

Muhammad Mokaev was removed from the UFC roster in 2024 and since then he has struggled to find compelling matchups outside of the UFC.

This coming Saturday, the 25-year-old competes on Ilia Topuria’s MMA promotion when he takes on Jorge Calvo at WOW 31 in Madrid.

And ahead of that fight, Mokaev has called for a return to the UFC to fight Van, claiming that he is that confident that he would win the fight that he would retire from the sport if he didn’t win.

When he was in the UFC, Mokaev was widely regarded as a guaranteed future champion, and he had goals of breaking Jon Jones‘ record as the youngest champion ever.

“How you gonna hate from outside the club, you can’t even get in,” Van posted on X with laughing emojis.