Van, Pantoja, Steveson's Next Best Fights After UFC 331 Results

Joshua Van successfully retained his flyweight title at UFC 331 with a unanimous decision win over Alexandre Pantoja.

Van used their highly anticipated rivalry to further establish himself as the true flyweight champion. After winning via injury in their first fight, it was important for him to get a more clean win this time around.

Now, both Van and Pantoja can move on from their rivalry and keep the division moving forward.

While Van was one of the card's biggest winners, the night did not go so well for Gable Steveson. The former NCAA wrestling champion was knocked out in a stunning upset on the main card.

Let's take a look at what could be on the horizon for Steveson and both main eventers.

There's really only one logical next contender for Joshua Van and it's Manel Kape.

There's already some heat between the two. They have gone back and forth about who is allegedly ducking who and a hypothetical title fight. With Pantoja now out of the picture, now is the time to make the fight happen.

Beef aside, Kape is the most logical contender anyway. He's in the middle of a four-fight win streak with four finishes, including knockout wins over Kyoji Horiguchi and Brandon Royval.

Working our way down the latest UFC flyweight rankings, Kape is the No. 2 contender behind Pantoja. Royval and Tatsuro Taira follow him up.

Van beat Taira in his first title defense and we just noted that Kape beat Royval.

At this point, Royval would be the top backup option to Kape, but this division needs to see Van vs. Kape before anything else.

Pantoja's run of success into his 30s in a division where youth and athleticism tends to reign supreme has been impressive. The reality is that he's now 36 years old and coming off back-to-back losses.

He needs a bounce-back performance and he doesn't really have the time to work his way back up the rankings.

A matchup against Brandon Royval would give him the opportunity to do that. Royval is a mainstay at the top of the rankings and Pantoja beat him in a title defense.

Royval is looking for a new opponent after his submission win over Lone'er Kavanagh so he could be interested in avenging a loss.

Tatsuro Taira and Kyoji Horiguchi would also follow similar matchmaking logic. Taira was last seen in a loss to Van so pairing up his two most recent victims would make sense to get one of them back in the title picture.

Horiguchi was on a nice run before a loss to Kape. It would be a good high profile fight for two veterans looking to stay relevant in the division.

It's still too early for the UFC to sell all of its Gable Steveson stock. His impressive wrestling background and athleticism are still a solid foundation to build on.

But it's also pretty obvious that his striking defense and chin could be barriers that keep him from reaching his potential.

The UFC is going to need to take a cautious approach to building him up as a contender. Getting knocked out by a relatively unknown fighter is the worst-case scenario. Now the matchmaking has to focus on a relatively inexperienced fighter who will allow Steveson to rebound without much knockout threat.

All three of these potential opponents have at least one UFC fight under their belt, but haven't been around long.

Freeman was notably finished by Josh Hokit in the first round. Terrance Chatman has some power, but was finished by first-round submission in his last fight while Guilherme Pat hasn't scored a knockout in two years with back-to-back decision losses.