Joshua Van retained his flyweight title with a points win over Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 331 in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Van had dethroned Pantoja in December in strange circumstances, when the Brazilian suffered an early injury, and sealed a clearer win in their rematch. Pantoja took Van down in the opening 10 seconds, but the 24-year-old champion found space to use his boxing skills.
The fight appeared tied at 1-1 after two rounds, the second of which was briefly paused while a bloodied Pantoja complained of a headbutt, with a replay seeming to show an accidental clash of heads. Pantoja, 36, stacked up control time and landed strikes in a razor-close third round, and was dominant with his grappling in the fourth.
Van came up clutch in the fifth, outstriking Pantoja and dropping him with a clean right cross late on. The scorecards all went his way, surprisingly one-sided at 49-46, 49-47 and 50-45, as Van recorded a second successful title defence, having stopped Tatsuro Taira in May.
In the co-main event, Arman Tsarukyan beat Mauricio Ruffy in what was billed as a lightweight-title eliminator. The Armenian survived testing moments and noticeable damage to his left eye to stop Ruffy at the end of round one, crumpling him with an elbow against the fence. Tsarukyan, 29, even landed a second elbow as his Brazilian opponent collapsed.