Joshua Van to defend flyweight title against Manel Kape at UFC 336 in Toronto

Flyweight champion Joshua Van will defend his title against Manel Kape in the UFC 336 main event on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2027, in Toronto. The UFC announced the fight on Saturday, Oct. 24, during its UFC 333 broadcast.

The card is at Scotiabank Arena. Prelims start at 7 p.m. ET and the main card at 9 p.m. ET, on Paramount+ in the US, according to the UFC's event page. Tickets go on sale in November, according to Cageside Press.

The co-main event is Carlos Prates vs. Michael Morales for the interim welterweight title, and the UFC says the winner gets Islam Makhachev. Makhachev vs. Prates was the original plan, but the date didn't work for the champion, Ariel Helwani reported.

How the rivalry built

The first link came at UFC 317 in June 2025. Kape was booked to fight Brandon Royval but pulled out with a broken foot. Van took the fight on short notice and beat Royval by unanimous decision in a title eliminator.

A title fight between them was discussed in early 2026 and fell apart, with each side blaming the other. In February, Kape called reports of a March 7 fight "Fake news" on X, according to Fighters Only. He said the UFC told him the next shot was promised to Tatsuro Taira, and that he had cut to 144 pounds before hearing the turnaround was too short.

In March, Van told MMA Junkie Radio he had accepted the March 7 date, BJPenn.com reported. He said Kape "tried to act like I'm the one that didn't want the fight." Kape fought Kyoji Horiguchi instead.

In the last public exchange we found, on X on Sept. 30, Van told Kape to start cutting weight now: "We don't want another weight excuse," according to MMA Sucka. Kape fired back:

"By the way, the weight I'm putting on is just so I can put you to sleep even earlier than Charles Johnson did."

Van's jab points to January 2024, when Kape missed weight by 3.5 pounds for a rematch with Matheus Nicolau and the fight was cancelled, Sherdog reported. Johnson is the only man to beat Van in the UFC, by third-round knockout in July 2024.

Where they stand

Van (18-2) is 25, was born in Myanmar and has lived in Houston since he was 12, according to the Houston Chronicle. He has won eight straight since the Johnson loss. He took the belt from Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323 in December 2025, when Pantoja hurt his arm 26 seconds in. He then stopped Taira in the fifth round in May and outpointed Pantoja on Sept. 19.

This will be Van's third defense, per theScore. It's Kape's first UFC title shot. The 32-year-old from Angola is a former RIZIN bantamweight champion and is ranked No. 2 behind Pantoja. The Chronicle points out he's the only top-four flyweight Van hasn't beaten.

Kape (23-7) has won four straight, all by stoppage. The run covers Bruno Silva, Asu Almabayev, a first-round knockout of Royval last December and a third-round finish of Horiguchi in June. Cageside Press notes he earned a Performance of the Night bonus in each of the last three.

Against Royval, Kape's result is the better one: Van took Royval on short notice and won a decision. But Kape lost a decision to Pantoja in February 2021, while Van has beaten Pantoja twice.

The odds

On our numbers, backing Kape at the closing price in all 11 of his UFC fights would have returned +0.18 units on an 8-3 record. That's what his past closing prices would have paid, not a guide to the next fight. He was the favourite in each of his last four wins, from -408 against Silva to -163 against Horiguchi.

The opening line was posted in September, before the fight was booked. It had the champion as a +170 underdog to Kape's -200, according to a FightOdds_io post cited by Heavy.

We think that gives Kape a lot of credit. Van has won three straight title fights and reached the fifth round in both defenses. All four of Kape's wins in this run ended by the third round, so we haven't seen him deep into a five-round fight.