Two days after winning the UFC's flyweight championship in December, Joshua Van stood at his father's grave in Houston. It was his first visit since December 2022, when he won a regional title with Fury Fighting Championship.
"I will go to the cemetery with my mom, but I usually stay in the car," Van told ESPN. "I only go in when I accomplish something big. I was nothing but a disappointment when he was alive, you know what I mean?"
Van (16-2) looks to defend his 125-pound championship against Tatsuro Taira (18-1) at UFC 328 on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey. The 24-year-old has amassed a 9-1 record in less than three years in the UFC and last year became the second-youngest champion in UFC history behind Jon Jones, who first held a title at 23. Van is at the top of his game but is still a man motivated by his past.
Van was born and spent his formative years in Myanmar, a Southeast Asian country that has endured decades of civil conflict and instability. His father was absent the majority of Van's childhood, searching for opportunities to move his family out of Myanmar. When Van was 9 years old, he was separated from his father and two of his sisters, as he waited to join them at a refugee camp his father found in Malaysia.
"Two of my sisters went to my father first, and then me, my mother and younger sister went after one year," Van said. "None of us had cell phones. We could only talk when they were able to call our home phone. It would be a whole year without them calling and us not knowing what was happening. It was crazy."
Van's family migrated to Houston when he was 12, and the adjustment to a new culture and a new environment was hard. He was teased because he struggled to speak and understand English when he first arrived, and he would constantly get into fights. His parents relocated the family numerous times in the hopes that Van would find peace, but the fights escalated instead. Eventually, Van found himself in a situation that forced him to move out of Houston altogether.
"My homeboy called me and was like, 'Bro, this one is serious, you need to get out of the city,'" Van said. "At first I thought he was f---ing with me, but I told my dad and he didn't give it a second thought. Two days after I told my dad about it, I moved."
Van went to live with family members in Iowa, where he continued to get into trouble. His aunt, concerned with her nephew's trajectory, challenged him to fight for the pride of his country and his family, rather than for himself in the streets. Soon after, Van moved back to Houston, where he found an MMA gym and dedicated himself to training. From there, his path began to change.
Van's father died when Van was 16, so he wasn't there to witness his son's amateur debut at 19 years old in 2020. Fewer than three years later, Van had fought his way to a UFC contract.
With his aunt's words still in his heart, Van couldn't wait to represent Myanmar on MMA's largest stage, but when he debuted in July 2023, UFC fighters were barred from carrying national flags to the Octagon due to escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Even after the ban was lifted in October 2023, the UFC denied Van's next five requests to walk out with the Myanmar flag.
"[Van] would get mad about it every fight because they would make him put the flag away right before [he walked out]," Van's coach Daniel Pineda said. "He would literally have it ready to make the walk, and they would tell him he couldn't have it."
Myanmar is a politically troubled region with a long history of conflict between military control and rebel groups. A 2021 military coup thrust the country into ongoing civil war. Whether the war was a reason for the initial denial, Van kept pushing the UFC and CEO Dana White to reconsider their decision to disallow the flag, and in 2025, they did. Van represented Myanmar four times last year in one of the greatest breakout campaigns in recent memory. He capped it off in December by defeating longtime champion Alexandre Pantoja, who suffered an arm injury during an awkward fall in the first round.
He bought his mother a house in Houston last year and still lives with her, even as a UFC titleholder. Pineda said he has seen no change in Van's mindset going into 2026. Van wants to defend the title against Taira and fight again as soon as possible. He wants a rematch with Pantoja to erase any doubt as to the legitimacy of his championship. And he wants to fight anyone who wants to fight him. "He's looking for a fight all the time, that's about the only bad thing about being champion," Pineda laughed. "The freaking No. 30-ranked flyweight could call him out, and he's like, 'All right, let's fight.' And we've got to be like, 'No, no, no, you can't just fight anybody now.'"
The future is bright and limitless -- and between representing his humble beginnings and making amends to his late father, who never got to see him fight, the past will continue to motivate.
"I don't know if he can be proud of me now," Van said. "But I hope he is."
