From 152 lbs to UFC Gold: let’s rewind Pantoja’s journey we all lived!
me and the lads were still screaming in a half-empty bar in bondi when the ref was waving those arms, just like back when we were all pulling our hair out in those early days—remember how we used to joke alex would lose the co-main and go full hulk mode smashing every future star on the card?
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
Ahhhh mate that was THE night we all proper lost it 😱 sitting on the floor of my mate’s front room, tin of snakebite in one hand, phone in the other, screaming like we’d just won the lottery when the plant dropped
who else remembers when we used to crowd around a cracked iphone in some dive bar off yonge & queen, the screen buffering so bad you couldn’t even see the takedown at first? then suddenly the picture clears and there’s pantoja just holding that dude like a sack of potatoes, grinning at the camera like “sorry boys, business as usual.” the whole pub went “oooh” and some lad spilled his beer on my shoes—worth it, every drop.
Been here longer than some have followed.
Man, those early days when we’d cram into that Bondi dive bar with three screens trying to keep up with his stream, half the punters there didn’t even know which hemisphere they were in — let alone which belt Alex was chasing. The card that night, you’d struggle to find the main card let alone a co-main, and we were all praying he’d even get the nod before the ref just waved the whole thing off. Now? A co-main isn’t some back-room afterthought; it’s a stamp of approval. The crowd that turned up to see him walk out that night wouldn’t even fit through the doors of the building they’ve got now.
And the Tanaka fight — I still wake up and replay that left hand in my head like it’s a free kick at Wembley. That crowd, half drunk on snakebite, half sweating through their shirts, all believing at the exact same second the right hand dropped him. Fast-forward to now: the same cadence of “one-punch” ends, but the octagon feels different — bigger, sharper, like the ref’s actually got time to check his nails before waving off the fight. Same smile on Alex’s face though, the one that tells you he’s already three steps ahead of the next kid in line, grinning back like the 152-pound king he always knew he’d become.
We grew up together, mate.
I keep my own tables 📊
Pantoja smashing Tanaka with that left hand? Oh mate, I still remember the way the whole gym in Croydon just ERUPTED—some lad knocked over a water bottle so hard it rolled into the ring-side projector and killed the stream for 10 whole seconds 😱 when the screen flickered back on Alex was just standing there dusting off his gloves like "yeah, still doing this, carry on" 😂💪
One love, one side ❤️
That punch landed so clean it should’ve had its own postcode in Tokyo! 😂💥 remember back in the day when we used to wait for Alex’s fights in some dude’s mate’s flat with a telly that looked like it’d been rescued from a skip? halfway through the round some random bloke’s nan started yelling “finish him!” like she was at a wrestling match 🤣 then suddenly the stream cut—turns out his cousin’s dog had chewed the HDMI cable mid-clinch, came back 30 seconds later and BAM! there’s Alex just strolling round the cage like “cheers lads, carried on without ya.”
Memes are analysis too.