As much as I loved and respected Vans performance. I still think Pantoja is the worst matchup possible for him. He will do what Taira did to him before he got hurt for 5 rounds and force the grappling. It’s a bit difficult to say if he can come back to where he once was from the injury especially at 36, but unlike Taira he will be covering up after getting tagged. Kape, Horiguchi and Loner Kavanagh would be difficult fights for him too, but the kid has beautiful boxing, underrated power, excellent conditioning and ever improving ground game. At 24 he’s only going to get better.
As for Taira, tremendous heart, samurai spirit obviously, still only young too, but there’s a gap on the feet, his hand placement after getting lit up is infuriating with his hands down, there’re a reason why Vans hand placement is perfect, but Taira could’ve avoided getting hit repeatedly when he was dancing on ice. Put your damn hands up to your chin ffs, stop fucking about. Anyways, he still has a big future and an excellent grappling game. He just needs to get better in the stand up cuz his cardio was good or else if it let him down he would’ve been finished earlier.
