Alexandre Pantoja · Biography

Alexandre Pantoja Passidomo, born on 16 April 1990 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a mixed martial artist who held the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) flyweight title from 2023 to 2025 and defended it four times.

From jiu-jitsu to the pro ranks

He took up Brazilian jiu-jitsu at 11 at an academy in Copacabana and also fought in muay thai before settling on MMA. His professional debut came on 21 July 2007, a submission win at Vila Fight. Most of his early fights were in Shooto Brazil and other domestic promotions, where he lost a decision to Jussier Formiga in 2010.

On 12 September 2014 he choked out Matt Manzanares in Albuquerque to take the Resurrection Fighting Alliance (RFA) flyweight title, and in 2015 he beat Damacio Page in another flyweight title bout. A year later he joined The Ultimate Fighter: Tournament of Champions, beating Brandon Moreno and Kai Kara-France before losing to Hiromasa Ougikubo in the semi-finals.

Ultimate Fighting Championship

His official UFC debut was a split-decision win over Eric Shelton at UFC on Fox 23 on 28 January 2017. He beat Moreno again in May 2018, this time on the scorecards, and dropped decisions to Deiveson Figueiredo in 2019 and Askar Askarov in 2020. A run of wins followed: Manel Kape in 2021, Brandon Royval by rear-naked choke later that year and Alex Perez in the first round in 2022.

At UFC 290 on 8 July 2023 he took the flyweight belt from Brandon Moreno by split decision, their third meeting counting the reality-show bout. He then defended it against Royval at UFC 296 (December 2023), Steve Erceg at UFC 301 (May 2024), Kai Asakura at UFC 310 (December 2024) and Kai Kara-France at UFC 317 (June 2025), submitting the last two.

The Joshua Van fights

He lost the title to Joshua Van at UFC 323 on 6 December 2025, just 26 seconds into the first round, after injuring his arm when he fell following a caught kick. In the rematch at UFC 331 in Los Angeles on 19 September 2026, Van kept the belt with a unanimous decision after five rounds.