Alexandre Pantoja | Viva Las Vegas

“All that comes with my age, and I started to believe more in myself,” he added. “I started to believe I can do something spectacular in my fights.”

He gets the opportunity to make it three straight spectacular performances on Saturday night, when he and Van stand across from one another with the flyweight title hanging in the balance.

At the start of the year, the odds on Van being the one opposing Pantoja in his annual December appearance would have been relatively high, as the Houston-based challenger had lost to Charles Johnson back in the summer and was in the process of building himself back up. But impressive performances against Rei Tsuruya and Bruno Silva showed Van was more than just an intriguing prospect, and an injury to Manel Kape opened the door for the UFC’s first athlete from Myanmar to step into a No. 1 contender bout against Brandon Rovyal.