Joshua Van reveals mystery injury that pushed Tatsuro Taira fight to UFC 328

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - MAY 09: Joshua Van of Myanmar reacts after a TKO victory against Tatsuro Taira of Japan in the UFC flyweight championship fight during the UFC 328 event at Prudential Center on May 09, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

Joshua Van has revealed the injury that pushed his title defense against Tatsuro Taira from last month’s UFC 327 to last night’s UFC 328.

Van beat Taira via fifth round TKO, battering the Japanese challenger badly until the referee decided he’d seen enough. If there were any lingering effects of the mystery injury that forced “Fearless” to delay their fight, we couldn’t see it. In a new interview with Full Send MMA after his win, Van laid out what had happened.

“It was serious, man. It was bad,” Van said. “I couldn’t run. Even this camp, I couldn’t run until the last two weeks. Bro, my knee was f–ked.”

The 24 year old flyweight champ admitted it wasn’t his decision to pull out of the April 11th date.

“It was Daniel Pineda and my coaches, they had a little meeting and said, ‘We gotta call it off, man,'” he said. “There was nothing I could do for cardio. I did the bike and stuff like that, sparred sometimes, but my knee was f–ked, bro.”

This isn’t the first time Van has had knee issues, although it was the first time he didn’t compete due to them.