Joshua Van Defended His UFC Title With a Torn Shoulder Because MMA is Absurd

A torn AC joint sounds like the kind of injury that gets a quarterback shut down for the season. Joshua Van just used one to casually defend his UFC flyweight title.

The 24-year-old champion revealed he tore his right shoulder in mid-August, completely derailing his training camp for UFC 331. For context, most of us take a sick day if we sleep on our arm wrong. Van just spent 25 minutes throwing hands with former 125-pound kingpin Alexandre Pantoja.

"I tore my AC joint in my right shoulder and I couldn’t even spar."

According to MMA Fighting, Van couldn't even spar until the final two weeks before the fight. His entire camp was just running and cardio. That explains why he looked fresh enough to run a half-marathon after the final bell while Pantoja was drowning in the championship rounds.

If you laid juice on Van to retain his belt, you are probably sweating retroactively. Finding out your fighter walked into a five-round title bout without throwing a practice punch for a month is the exact scenario that ruins a Saturday night. Instead, he pitched a 50-45 shutout on the scorecards and made it look easy.

Van is heading in for MRIs this week to see if the shoulder requires anything major. The guy fought four times in 2025 and twice in 2026, so sitting on the couch is clearly not his brand. But if his version of a compromised, cardio-only camp looks like that, the rest of the flyweight division is in serious trouble.