Manel Kape Sends Violent Warning to Joshua Van Ahead of UFC 336 Title Fight

Manel Kape wasted no time before kicking off the pre-fight trash talk for his recently-announced UFC 336 bout with Joshua Van.

Set to take place Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, UFC 336 is the first numbered UFC event scheduled for 2027 and will see the world’s leading MMA promotion return to Toronto for the first time since 2024.

Announced during the broadcast for UFC 333 last Saturday, UFC 336 will see Carlos Prates and Michael Morales meet in an interim welterweight title bout in the co-main event before Kape challenges UFC Flyweight Champion Van in the final fight of the night.

Joshua Van vs. Manel Kape Headlines UFC 336 in Toronto

While the decision to book an interim title bout between Prates and Morales was a bit unexpected, all signs seemed to point towards a fight between Kape and Van following the latter fighter’s successful title defense at UFC 331.

There seems to be plenty of bad blood between the two men that has already translated into some headed exchanges online, and Kape took confirmation of their UFC 336 title fight as an opportunity to fire another shot at Van.

“You better spend time working on that defense, kid, or ask the UFC to let u wear a helmet. You have my permission Cuz I’m coming to do some serious damage to that pea head.”

Manel Kape Has Knocked Out Four-Straight UFC Opponents

Already a veteran of 19 professional MMA bouts before he joined the UFC in 2021, Kape made a name for himself during a nine-fight run with top Japanese promotion RIZIN that began when he scored a first-round knockout in his 2017 debut.

After going 1-2 with RIZIN in 2018, “Starboy” put together a three-fight win streak of knockouts in 2019 that was capped off a second-round finish of Kai Asakura in their rematch at RIZIN 20 to win the promotion’s vacant bantamweight belt.

Kape signed with the UFC in 2020 but wasn’t able to enter the Octagon for his debut until 2021 when he came up short against future UFC flyweight titleholder Alexander Pantoja, and the following month he also dropped a split decision to Matheus Nicolau.

“Starboy” collected back-to-back wins before the end of the year to kick off what turned into a four-fight win streak that Muhammad Mokaev ended at UFC 304, but since then Kape has knocked out four-straight opponents and secured three “Performance of the Night” bonuses in a row.

Joshua Van Has Defended the UFC Flyweight Belt Twice

Fans celebrated the quality of last Saturday’s UFC 333 card and its highly-anticipated title bouts, and Kape’s first title shot at UFC 336 also promises to be another fan-friendly affair given the body of work Van has also put together as of late.

A former Fury FC titleholder, Kape was originally slated to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series before he stepped in to face Zhalgas Zhumagulov in a short-notice UFC debut and got his hand raised via split decision.

The win over Zhumagulov was followed by two more victories before Van suffered an upset at the hands of Charles Johnson, but “The Fearless rebounded with five-straight wins to set up a title fight with the aforementioned Pantoja at UFC 323.

Van ended up winning the belt in anticlimactic fashion when Pantoja injured his arm just 26 seconds into the fight, but the 25-year-old has now firmly solidified his place as flyweight champion after defending the title twice against Tatsuro Taira and in a rematch with Pantoja at UFC 331.