Joshua Van has his sights set on becoming a part of history and being aligned with Jon Jones, but he is on a bit of a tight timeline to achieve this feat. Following his victory over the number one flyweight contender Brandon Royval, which was his second win in the month of June, Van seems hungry for a title shot opportunity following UFC 317.
Pursuing a championship belt is desirable to fighters for obvious reasons, but a title victory at this juncture would place the surging 125-pounder into a historical context with Jon Jones. At the UFC 317 post-event press conference while addressing on-site media members as to what he hopes to achieve before we encroach deep into Autumn, Van said,
“I’m the same age as Jon Jones was when he won the belt. They’re going to have to book me before October so I can at least match his records.”
Joshua Van and the youngest champions in UFC history
Joshua Van is twenty-three years old which, as he mentioned above, is the same age Jon Jones was when he became the UFC light heavyweight champion after finishing Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua inside the distance. While Van’s clock is ticking a bit as he will be turning twenty-four on October 10th, per Tapology, there is a special opportunity here for the Myanmar native if he does in fact get booked into a title fight next against reigning flyweight kingpin Alexandre Pantoja.
While Van could potentially squeeze onto the throne with Jones in the coming months, it’s curious to look back at some of the youngest titleholders throughout the history of the UFC. Prior to Jones accomplishing what he did, Jose Aldo was the youngest UFC champion of all time at the tender age of 24 after holding the WEC crown at 145 pounds before the UFC acquired that company and crowned ‘Scarface’ their inaugural champion for that weight class.
Before the days of Jose Aldo terrorizing the octagon, Josh Barnett was the youngest UFC champion ever and while he was also 24 at the time, ‘The Warmaster’ was ultimately older than Aldo. There is a similar framework with the prior youngest champion in company history with Carlos Newton also being 24 years old, albeit older than Barnett, when he captured the UFC welterweight strap in what was also the first instance of a Canadian combatant holding UFC gold.
