Alexandre Pantoja open to 'roll the dice' in champ-champ fight vs. Merab Dvalishvili
Pantoja (30-5 MMA, 14-3 UFC) has four title defenses under his belt, and appears to get better each time out. The 35-year-old champ has wins over six of the current UFC-ranked top 10 contenders. While Pantoja is comfortable ruling over his division, he isn't completely shunning the idea of moving up to bantamweight to challenge Merab Dvalishvili for the title.
"That fight makes sense right now, why not?" Pantoja told Home of Fight. "It's gonna be amazing, but the problem is, why do I need to go to 135?"
On his run as champ, Pantoja defeated Brandon Moreno to win the title, and has since defended his crown against Brandon Royval, Steve Erceg, Kai Asakura and Kai Kara-France. Add in prior wins over Manel Kape and Alex Perez, and that's six of the top 10. However, the other four have been turning heads as they navigate their way to the top.
The next expected opponent for Pantoja is Joshua Van, who faced off with Pantoja inside the octagon at UFC 317, although the fight does not have a date or location. There's also Tatsuro Taira, who rebounded impressively from his first career loss by stopping HyunSung Park, and Amir Albazi, who was originally set to face Taira for what would have been a big top 10 matchup. Lastly, Asu Almabayev is making noise at 5-1 in the division.
"I keep having challenges in my division," Pantoja said. "Why not (Mohammad Mokaev if he returns)? He has good grappling. ... Taira, he showed better boxing. When he fought Royval, Royval made him get in trouble. Now I see he have better boxing, he fixed a couple of things. Joshua have amazing boxing too, amazing skill, good takedown defense – I have very good challengers there."
Most importantly, Pantoja isn't overlooking what lies ahead. He knows that Van presents a unique challenge, so he doesn't want to get ahead of himself when thinking about a potential move up. Plus, it's not all on him; Dvalishvili has to win his next title defense against Cory Sandhagen, which is set as the UFC 320 co-main event on Oct. 4.
"Of course, why not think about that (fight)?" Pantoja said. "Roll the dice. Next fight, I have a fight to fight. Merab have a fight too. It's a good fight. Sandhagen's not an easy guy, bro. It's about Merab too. Merab needs to win his fight too. ... It's a good fight. It's gonna be a banger, this fight. I'm excited to watch."
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