There’s good news from former UFC flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja this week after it emerged that he’s back in sparring after the freak arm injury he suffered in his last fight.

Pantoja was only 26 seconds into the 5th defense of the 125lb title against Joshua Van in December when he appeared to break his arm as he fell to the mat, leading to an unfortunate TKO loss that ended his reign as champion.

Thankfully it later emerged that his arm wasn’t broken, but tendon and ligament damage meant that he’d need time out to recover.

And it seems that things have progressed well since then as he’s now resumed light training, though it’ll still be a few months before he’s able to compete again.

“He did the first light sparring today,” Pantoja’s coach Marcos ‘Parrumpa’ da Matta revealed on Tuesday. “Everybody was able to see how hard the injury was, two months ago. But Pantoja is such a focused person, he worked hard to heal since day one.”

And ‘Parrumpa’ made it clear that Pantoja wants to have an immediate rematch with Van upon his return.

“He can’t wait to return and [get a finish] against Joshua Van,” da Matta said.

It remains to be seen whether the UFC will be willing to wait around to give Pantoja the immediate title shot he deserves, and ‘Parrumpa’ acknowledges that there are other challengers willing to step to the front of the queue if his fighter isn’t ready in time.

“If he returns [in] May, the revenge must be done,” ‘Parrumpa’ stated. “In case he needs more time, probably [for the] UFC, I see [Manel] Kape and [Tatsuro] Taira with more chances to fight for the belt, with Kyogi [Horiguchi] coming in third place.

“The fact is that the same way lightweight depends on [Ilia] Topuria, flyweight depends on Pantoja.”

The 35-year-old Pantoja has certainly been the leading light in the flyweight ranks for several years now, defeating the likes of Brandon Moreno, Brandon Royval, Manel Kape, Steve Erceg and Kai Kara-France during his eight-fight winning streak before his injury loss.