Becoming a UFC champion helped mend Joshua Vann’s relationship with his late father

Two days after winning the UFC’s flyweight championship in December, Joshua Vann Standing at Dad’s grave in Houston. It was his first visit since December 2022, when he won a regional title with the Fury Fighting Championship.

“I’ll go to the cemetery with my mom, but I’m usually in the car,” Vann told ESPN. “I only step in when I can do something big. I was nothing but a disappointment when he was alive, you know what I mean?”

Vann (16-2) looks to defend his 125-pound championship 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. John Joneswho first won a title at the age of 23. Van is at the top of his game but still a man haunted by his past.

Vann was born and spent his early years in Myanmar, a Southeast Asian country that has endured decades of civil war and instability. His father was absent for most of Van’s childhood, looking for an opportunity to move his family out of Myanmar. When Van was 9 years old, he was separated from his father and his two sisters, as he waited to join them in a refugee camp where his father had been found in Malaysia.

“My two sisters went to my dad first and then me, my mom and younger sister went a year later,” Vann said. “None of us had cell phones. The only time we could talk was when they called our home phone. They’d go whole years without calling and we wouldn’t know what was going on. It was crazy.”

Van’s family moved to Houston when he was 12, and it was difficult to adjust to a new culture and a new environment. He was bullied because he had trouble speaking and understanding English when he first arrived, and he constantly got into fights. His parents moved the family several times in the hope that Van would find peace, but instead the fights escalated. Eventually, Vann found himself in a situation that forced him to move out of Houston entirely.

“My homeboy called me and said, ‘Bro, this is serious, you need to get out of town,'” Vann said. “At first I thought he was talking to 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 left.”

Van went to live with family members in Iowa, where he continued to get into trouble. His aunt, concerned about her nephew’s trajectory, challenged him to fight for his country and his family’s pride rather than for himself on the streets. Soon, Van returned to Houston, where he found an MMA gym and dedicated himself to training. From there his path changed.

Van’s father died when Van was 16, so he wasn’t around to see his son make his amateur debut in 2020 at the age of 19. Less than three years later, Vann fought his way to a UFC contract.

With his aunt’s words still in his heart, Vann couldn’t wait to represent Myanmar on MMA’s biggest stage, but when he made his debut in July 2023, UFC fighters were barred from carrying the national flag in the Octagon due to the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Even after the ban was lifted in October 2023, the UFC rejected Van’s next five requests to walk out with the Myanmar flag.

Van coach Daniel Pineda Said “he would literally be ready to walk and they’d tell him he couldn’t do it.”

Myanmar is a politically troubled region with a long history of military control and conflict between rebel groups. A military coup in 2021 plunged the country into an ongoing civil war. Whether or not the fight was the reason for the initial denial, Van pushed the UFC and CEO Dana White to reconsider the decision to deny the flag, and in 2025 they did. Wan represented Myanmar four times last year in one of the biggest breakout campaigns in recent memory. He closed it out in December by defeating the longtime champion Alexander Pantozawho 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 doesn’t see any change in van’s mindset in 2026. Van wants to defend the title against Tyra and fight again as soon as possible. He wants a rematch with Pantoza to remove doubts about the legitimacy of his championship. And whoever wants to fight him wants to fight him. “He’s always looking for a fight, that’s the only bad thing about being champion,” Pineda laughed. “Amazing No. 30-ranked flyweight can call him, and he’s like, ‘OK, let’s fight.’ And we have to be like, ‘No, no, no, you can’t fight anybody now.’

The future is bright and limitless — and between representing his humble beginnings and making amends to his late father, who never saw him fight, the past will continue to inspire.

“I don’t know if he could be proud of me now,” Van said. “But I hope he is.”