Joshua Van

About

Joshua Van Bawi Thawng (Burmese: ယောရှုဗန်ဘွေထောင်း; born October 10, 2001) is a Burmese and American professional mixed martial artist currently competing in the Flyweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is the current UFC Flyweight Champion. Van is the first fighter from Myanmar to sign with the promotion. At UFC 323, he became the UFC’s second Asian-born male champion and the first champion to be born in the 2000s. As of June 23, 2026, he is #11 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings.

Van was born on October 10, 2001 in Hakha, in the Chin State of western Myanmar, to a family of five siblings. Due to a country ridden with military and political conflict, his family moved to Malaysia, when he was ten. In 2013, at the age of twelve, Van migrated with his family to the United States, settling in Houston.

Van made his professional MMA debut in 2021. He fought exclusively for Fury Fighting Championship, where he acquired a 7–1 record including in the main event of Fury FC 72 on December 18, 2022, where he submitted Cleveland McLean in the second round to win the promotion’s Flyweight…