Natalia Silva survived Wang Cong to become the new UFC women’s flyweight champion, Payton Talbott demolished Deiveson Figueiredo in just over two minutes, Anthony Wint needed only 23 seconds to remain unbeaten, Court McGee closed a 16-year UFC career, and a staggering 11 fights ended in the opening round during one of the wildest numbered events of the year.
Salt Lake City, Utah – Some UFC cards gradually build toward their defining moment. UFC 332 never bothered with the buildup. From the opening portion of the event through the championship main event, fighters kept falling, careers kept changing and one of the most violent nights in recent UFC memory unfolded inside the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. By the time Natalia Silva wrapped the vacant women’s flyweight championship around her waist, 11 of the card’s 15 fights had ended in the first round, a modern UFC record that turned an event criticized beforehand for lacking star power into a night almost impossible to look away from.
Silva ultimately provided the championship moment the card required, but she had to earn every bit of it against Wang Cong. The Brazilian entered the fight on a 14-fight winning streak and carrying the pressure of becoming the face of a division entering a new era after Valentina Shevchenko relinquished the title. Wang, meanwhile, arrived with the striking pedigree and confidence to make the matchup far more difficult than some of Silva’s critics expected.
The fight reflected that tension almost immediately. Silva started sharply, using feints, movement and varied kicks to establish control while mixing in enough grappling to prevent Wang from settling into a pure striking rhythm. The clearest moment of the early rounds came in the second, when Silva dropped Wang with a head kick and followed her to the mat before controlling portions of the round from top position and against the cage.
Wang refused to disappear. As the fight progressed, she became more aggressive, pressured Silva toward the fence and increasingly found success with punches, kicks and clinch work. By the championship rounds, the momentum had shifted enough to create real uncertainty. Wang landed hard combinations, forced Silva backward and finished the fifth round chasing the Brazilian across the Octagon while trying to steal the championship at the end.
The judges ultimately sided with Silva, awarding her a unanimous decision by scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46. With the victory, Silva improved to 21-5-1 overall and 9-0 in the UFC, extended her winning streak to 15 and completed a rise that has gradually transformed her from an elite contender into the new standard at 125 pounds.
Shevchenko did not allow the celebration to exist for long without reminding everyone that the old standard intends to return. Shortly after Silva’s victory, the former champion congratulated her, called her a deserving martial artist and then delivered the line that immediately framed the future of the division. She told Silva not to get too comfortable, to keep the belt warm and that she would be coming back for it, giving Silva’s championship reign an immediate sense of urgency. Silva finally climbed the mountain, but the woman who ruled the division for years is already looking back toward the summit. Whether Silva’s first defense comes against Shevchenko, Alexa Grasso, Erin Blanchfield or another challenger, UFC 332 ensured that the flyweight division now belongs to Silva until somebody proves otherwise.
If Silva left Salt Lake City with the belt, Payton Talbott left looking like one of the most dangerous emerging stars in the entire bantamweight division. Deiveson Figueiredo entered the co-main event as a former two-time flyweight champion with years of championship experience and the kind of résumé that has ended more than one prospect’s momentum. Talbott treated him like another obstacle. He took the center of the Octagon immediately, dropped Figueiredo inside the opening 30 seconds and then continued walking him down with the kind of calm aggression that made the difference in experience look almost irrelevant.
Figueiredo briefly attempted to change the fight by pressing Talbott against the cage and searching for a takedown, but once the two separated, the punishment continued. Talbott opened up with looping punches, repeatedly hurt the former champion and forced the stoppage at 2:09 of the first round, turning what looked on paper like a serious veteran test into a demolition of another decorated name.
Talbott had already beaten former two-division champion Henry Cejudo. Now he had stopped Figueiredo in barely two minutes, improved to 12-1 overall and 6-1 in the UFC, and immediately turned his attention toward another former bantamweight champion. Standing in the Octagon after the win, Talbott called out Sean O’Malley and joked that O’Malley could not run forever.
The callout made sense because Talbott’s UFC rise has repeatedly drawn comparisons to O’Malley’s. Both are long, creative strikers with unusual movement, strong personalities and the ability to produce highlight-reel offense. Talbott now believes the comparison should become an actual fight, and after what he did to Figueiredo, dismissing that possibility becomes much more difficult. Dana White praised Talbott afterward, calling the performance incredible, dominant and one of the biggest moments of the night. The UFC president also acknowledged what has become increasingly obvious: Talbott has moved beyond prospect status. Whether O’Malley accepts the matchup or the UFC chooses another high-level contender, Talbott is now operating near the top of one of the promotion’s deepest divisions.
Only weeks after becoming one of the most intriguing new stories in the heavyweight division, Anthony Wint walked into UFC 332 and needed 23 seconds to remind everyone why the attention surrounding him is growing so quickly. Lucas Armand entered undefeated, but almost immediately found himself dragged into the kind of firefight Wint has repeatedly shown he can end without warning. The two heavyweights began exchanging from the opening seconds, Wint pressed forward and Armand went down almost immediately once Wint’s power found the target. The referee stepped in at just 23 seconds, moving Wint to 9-0 professionally and 2-0 inside the UFC.
The victory carried even more significance because of everything Wint has already survived before arriving at this level. His story includes an NFL career that never became what he hoped it would, periods of homelessness, financial hardship and a years-long gambling addiction he has described as a more difficult battle than anything he has encountered inside the cage. Fighting became a way to rebuild his sense of purpose, and now the undefeated heavyweight is beginning to turn that second athletic life into something substantial.
Wint did not waste the opportunity to create his next storyline. After the finish, he called out Sean Sharaf, another heavyweight whose stock has exploded following one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. That matchup would connect two fighters who have arrived through radically different paths but now find themselves moving toward the same increasingly crowded heavyweight conversation.
The symmetry of Wint’s rise became even more striking because UFC 332 also contained one of the most emotional endings of the night at the opposite end of a fighter’s journey. Court McGee entered the Octagon in front of a home-region crowd knowing it would be his final fight. The 41-year-old veteran had spent 16 years in the UFC after winning The Ultimate Fighter 11 in 2010, building a career defined less by championship contention than by resilience. His story outside the cage, particularly his recovery from drug addiction and the way he rebuilt his life through fighting, became inseparable from the fighter fans watched compete for more than a decade and a half.
There would be no storybook ending against Eric Nolan. McGee competed hard through the first two rounds, absorbed a damaging elbow at the end of the first and continued pushing forward even as the fight became increasingly difficult. By the third, Nolan’s heavier shots began taking over. A massive right hand hurt McGee badly, additional punches followed and the fight ended at 3:26 of the final round.
The loss did not define what happened next. McGee removed his gloves, placed them on the canvas and addressed the crowd one final time. His message returned to the theme that had defined so much of his life: never give up on your dreams. The UFC played a tribute video before he left the cage, closing a career that included 25 UFC appearances, notable victories over names such as Robert Whittaker, Josh Neer and Tim Means, and a personal journey that made his longevity mean far more than wins and losses alone.
There was something fitting about Wint and McGee competing on the same card. One fighter is beginning to discover what his UFC career might become after surviving difficult years before reaching the promotion. The other walked away after spending 16 years proving how much a career can mean when fighting becomes only one part of a much larger story. That contrast gave UFC 332 an emotional range that went far beyond the violence that dominated the rest of the night.
Around those moments, UFC 332 continued producing damage at an almost absurd pace. Johnny Walker delivered one of the cleanest knockouts of the evening against Mick Parkin. After using leg kicks and movement to keep Parkin from settling into the fight, Walker reversed position in the clinch and landed a brutal knee that rendered Parkin unconscious at 3:35 of the opening round. It was the kind of finish that immediately reminded everyone why Walker remains one of the heavyweight division’s most dangerous athletes when his offense is flowing.
Roman Kopylov produced another major result by stopping highly regarded middleweight prospect Ateba Gautier at 3:12 of the first. Gautier entered aggressively, but Kopylov stayed composed, countered cleanly and eventually found the shots that ended the fight. What had been presented as a potential showcase for a rising prospect instead became another reminder that veteran experience can still ruin the best developmental plans.
Esteban Ribovics’ victory over King Green came with considerably more controversy. Ribovics pressured aggressively from the beginning, eventually dropped Green repeatedly and forced referee Herb Dean to stop the fight at 4:08 of the first round. Green protested the stoppage, creating immediate debate over whether Dean intervened too quickly and bringing another layer of controversy to a night already overflowing with major moments.
Elsewhere, Damian Pinas knocked out Andrey Pulyaev in 75 seconds, Imanol Rodriguez stopped Alden Coria with a body kick in 3:11, Marcus McGhee finished Anthony Romero with only two seconds remaining in the first round, and Jacobe Smith remained unbeaten by stopping Bruce Whitehead in 1:32. Alexander Hernandez also survived a strong opening round from Rafael dos Anjos before turning the fight dramatically and stopping the former lightweight champion in the second.
Even the fights that reached the scorecards carried significance. Roberto Soldic overcame a difficult opening round against Khaos Williams before taking control with accurate combinations, head kicks and grappling to win a unanimous decision in his UFC debut. Marvin Vettori, meanwhile, saw his losing streak reach five after dropping a unanimous decision to Ismail Naurdiev, despite finishing strongly and creating enough late momentum to make the result feel much closer than the official scorecards suggested.
The sheer number of finishes eventually became a story unto itself. Eleven of the 15 fights ended in the opening round, establishing a modern UFC record and transforming UFC 332 into the kind of event that becomes remembered less for one individual performance than for the collective sense that virtually nobody was safe once the cage door closed. That makes Silva’s five-round championship win even more interesting in retrospect because, on a night defined by speed and destruction, the new champion had to demonstrate patience, adaptability and composure over 25 minutes.
UFC 332 arrived with questions about whether the card had enough star power to justify its place as a numbered event, but by the end of the night, that question felt almost irrelevant. Natalia Silva left with championship gold, Payton Talbott left looking like a future title challenger, Anthony Wint left undefeated and increasingly impossible to overlook, Johnny Walker rediscovered his finishing power, and Court McGee left his gloves inside the Octagon after giving the sport 16 years of his life. Salt Lake City did not simply produce another UFC event. It produced a night where one generation took control, another announced its arrival and one respected veteran finally walked away.
Andrew Carswell is a combat sports columnist and college writing professor, based in Las Vegas, NV, whose work examines the intersection of fighting, media, business, and culture. His commentary and analysis have been featured in various magazines, newspapers, and media outlets, including Yahoo! News, and USA TODAY. Blending journalistic insight and experience with a fan’s perspective, Carswell writes about the fight game as both a cultural phenomenon and a global business.