UFC 331 Fight Card 2026: Van vs Pantoja 2 in Los Angeles

The first Joshua Van vs. Alexandre Pantoja fight lasted 26 seconds. That is the entire shared history between the two best flyweights in the world going into Saturday, Sept. 19, when the UFC 331 fight card runs at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles with the main card set for 9 p.m. ET on Paramount+. Van holds the belt. Pantoja is the challenger trying to take it back.

The stakes are unusually clean. Van is 24 and, per UFC.com, the second youngest champion in promotional history. Pantoja is 36, owns the most wins in UFC flyweight history, and is chasing a place as just the third flyweight to reclaim the championship, joining Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo.

The UFC 331 fight card as UFC has it listed

A card 15 days out is a moving object. Below is the lineup as it appeared on the official UFC 331 event page when we checked on Sept. 4, 2026. Bouts get added and scratched right through weigh-ins, so treat it as current rather than locked.

Main card (Paramount+, 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT):

1. Joshua Van (c) vs. Alexandre Pantoja, flyweight title 2. Arman Tsarukyan vs. Mauricio Ruffy, lightweight, scheduled for five rounds 3. Patricio Pitbull vs. Dooho Choi, featherweight 4. Renato Moicano vs. Brian Ortega, lightweight 5. Alonzo Menifield vs. Iwo Baraniewski, light heavyweight

Prelims (Paramount+, 7 p.m. ET): Gable Steveson vs. Sean Sharaf at heavyweight, Marlon Vera vs. Charles Jourdain at bantamweight, Tai Tuivasa vs. Robelis Despaigne at heavyweight, and Edmen Shahbazyan vs. Brunno Ferreira at middleweight.

Early prelims (Paramount+ and UFC Fight Pass, 5 p.m. ET): Giga Chikadze vs. Joanderson Brito, Casey O'Neill vs. Eduarda Moura at women's flyweight, Ryan Gandra vs. Ozzy Diaz, and Michael Aswell Jr. vs. JooSang Yoo.

Two placements worth noting: Vera vs. Jourdain and Tuivasa vs. Despaigne are on the prelims, not the main card. Forbes reported the same five-fight main card on Aug. 17.

What the first Van vs Pantoja fight actually settled

Very little, and it is worth being blunt about that. UFC's own bout record lists the UFC 323 result on Dec. 6, 2025 as TKO (injury) at 0:26 of round one. Per UFC's announcement of this rematch, Pantoja suffered an elbow injury in the opening half minute and could not continue; Forbes described it as an injury to his left arm as he fell to the mat. Either way, Van did not knock him out, did not out-grapple him and did not answer a single stylistic question.

What Van has done since is the more useful evidence. In May he stopped Tatsuro Taira with strikes at 1:32 of the fifth round, which says something real about his championship-round gas tank.

The stylistic collision is a good one. Van's UFC.com profile has him landing 8.43 significant strikes per minute while absorbing 5.82, a fighter who wins firefights by out-volleying people rather than avoiding damage. He has never landed a takedown in the promotion (0 of 13) but defends 76 percent of those aimed at him. Pantoja is built the other way: 12 of his 30 career wins are submissions, and UFC.com credits him with the most submissions in UFC flyweight history at six. He keeps hunting the takedown too, at a 2.79 average per 15 minutes against 4 percent accuracy, 3 landed on 84 attempts.

The co-main and its lightweight title implications

Tsarukyan vs. Ruffy was booked for five rounds, and a five-round booking on a non-title bout is a signal in itself. Forbes described it as a lightweight title eliminator with the winner likely to move on to champion Justin Gaethje. That is reported, not booked, so hold it loosely.

Straight from UFC's announcement: Tsarukyan is the No. 2 ranked lightweight on a five-fight winning streak highlighted by a second-round submission of Dan Hooker and a decision over Charles Oliveira at UFC 300, returning for the first time since November. Ruffy, listed at No. 7 on UFC's own event page, arrives off a knockout of Michael Chandler at UFC Freedom 250 in June.

One subplot worth knowing: per Forbes, Crypto.com Arena is the same building where Tsarukyan was scheduled to face Islam Makhachev for the lightweight title at UFC 311 before being forced off the card on weigh-in day.

Betting and DFS impact

This page prints no odds, and that is a choice. A number posted two weeks before a fight is not the number you bet on fight night, and a stale price is worse than no price.

What moves a UFC line during fight week is narrow and predictable. Weight cut news first: a flyweight or lightweight who looks drawn at media day or misses on the scale reprices immediately. Camp and injury reporting second, which matters double here given how the first Van vs. Pantoja fight ended. Late replacements third, shifting the card's implied finish rate.

For method markets, the structural read on this UFC 331 fight card is that both featured bouts are built around finishers. Van has nine knockouts and Pantoja has 10 first-round finishes, so distance markets on the title fight carry risk in both directions. Tsarukyan's path is grappling control over five rounds; Ruffy's is one clean shot. That is not the same distribution and should not be priced like it is.

For DFS, the non-title five-rounder is the leverage spot. A scheduled 25 minutes with no belt attached is a rare shape, and it hands a control grappler scoring windows that a three-rounder never opens. Tsarukyan is the floor-oriented build in that spot and Ruffy the ceiling swing, whatever the pricing looks like on fight week. Model output for the card lands on the AI-driven sports picks hub as the books firm up, and Chad works the full lineup fight by fight.

What to watch before fight night

Three checkpoints. Official weigh-ins on Friday, Sept. 18, when card changes stop being theoretical. Any bout order reshuffle between prelims and main card. And the flyweight and lightweight rankings updates in the two weeks before Sept. 19, which telegraph how the promotion is framing the winners.

For the same styles-first framework in a different division, see our UFC Shanghai bantamweight breakdown.

FAQ

When is UFC 331? Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Early prelims at 5 p.m. ET, prelims at 7 p.m. ET, main card at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT).

Who is fighting in the UFC 331 main event? Flyweight champion Joshua Van defends against former champion Alexandre Pantoja. Van is the champion; Pantoja is the challenger.

Where can I watch UFC 331? Paramount+ carries all three segments, per UFC.com. The early prelims are also listed on UFC Fight Pass.

Who won the first Van vs Pantoja fight? Van, at UFC 323 on Dec. 6, 2025. UFC records it as a TKO by injury at 26 seconds of round one after Pantoja hurt his elbow, not a clean knockout.

Is the UFC 331 card final? No. The lineup above reflects UFC.com as of Sept. 4, 2026.

Chad AI tracks every UFC card inside the StatSniper app.

---

*21+. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Stat Sniper provides data and projections for informational purposes; you are responsible for your own wagers.*