UFC 332 spent weeks absorbing criticism as a thin card, and then it went and rewrote the record book. Saturday night at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City produced a new women’s flyweight champion, a co-main event knockout of a former champion, and more knockouts than any card in the promotion’s history.
The championship went exactly where the betting market expected it to go, and it took all twenty-five minutes to get there. Natalia Silva beat Wang Cong by unanimous decision, 48-47 twice and 49-46, to claim the title Valentina Shevchenko vacated last month with back and shoulder injuries, becoming the fourth champion in the division’s history. Silva controlled the early rounds with her jab, movement, and front-leg kicks, then dropped Wang with a sharp head kick midway through the second and took her to the floor for a spell of ground control. Wang never stopped coming. She closed distance more successfully as the fight wore on, stunned Silva more than once in the championship rounds, and won the fifth on at least one ringside card, but the finish she needed, her first since her 2024 UFC debut, never arrived. The result runs Silva’s winning streak to 15 and her UFC record to 9-0 at 29, with former champions Jessica Andrade, Alexa Grasso, and Rose Namajunas already on the résumé. Wang, 34, leaves 10-2 with a four-fight streak snapped and her reputation intact: she took the best flyweight in the world into the fifth round and made her work for every minute of it.
The new champion’s first months come with a crowded doorway. Grasso, who upset Manon Fiorot at Noche UFC last month, stands first in the queue, which would make a first defence a rematch of a fight Silva has already won. And Shevchenko, who relinquished the belt voluntarily, did so with the promotion’s guarantee of a title shot on her return, a reunion that now has a champion to aim at. Silva’s reign begins with two claims on her time and the cleanest résumé in the division to defend.
The co-main event delivered the night’s most emphatic statement. Payton Talbott dropped former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo twice and finished him with punches at 2:09 of the first round, the ninth first-round knockout of the night and the biggest win of the bantamweight’s career. Talbott, now 12-1 on a three-fight winning streak, wasted no time with the microphone, calling out Sean O’Malley for a fight to settle the next challenger at 135. Figueiredo, who has spent the past two years moving between divisions, absorbed the kind of loss that reshapes a veteran’s options.
The records are the part of the night that will outlast the rankings changes, and ESPN laid out the numbers. UFC 332 produced 11 knockouts, breaking the previous single-card high of nine set at UFC Fight Night: Imavov vs. Borralho in September 2025, and nine of them came in the opening round, surpassing a record of seven that had been matched three times, most recently in July and August. One stretch saw eight consecutive fights end by knockout or technical knockout. Esteban Ribovics broke the first-round mark when he stopped King Green with punches at 4:08 of the first in a catchweight bout, and Talbott extended it one fight later. The first-round winners read like a roll call: Ribovics and Talbott at the top, with Roman Kopylov, Johnny Walker, Marcus McGhee, Anthony Wint, Damian Pinas, Imanol Rodriguez, and Smith among the rest. Rodriguez, readers of our Noche UFC coverage will remember, is the unbeaten flyweight whose only setback is the TUF 33 exhibition loss to Joseph Morales, and he kept his professional record perfect in the quickest way available. Roberto Soldic, who survived an early storm against Khaos Williams, was one of the few men on the main card who needed the judges, winning a unanimous decision.
The business frame closes the night neatly. A card the audience had written off as filler for a CBS broadcast window turned into the most violent event the promotion has ever staged, crowned a champion with a 15-fight winning streak, and handed the bantamweight division a new contender with a callout already in circulation. The criticism lasted weeks. The record will last longer. The women’s flyweight title has a new owner, and the line to take it from her is already forming.
