Natalia Silva captured the vacant UFC women's flyweight championship Saturday, defeating Wang Cong by unanimous decision in the UFC 332 main event in Salt Lake City.
In the co-headliner, Payton Talbott tore through Deiveson Figueiredo for a first-round TKO win.
Here are four takeaways from the event.
Don't judge a book by its cover
UFC 332 was the least anticipated numbered event in a long time. There were very few people interested in the Silva-Wang title fight, and the rest of the card had little to offer in the way of compelling storylines or stakes. But in MMA, you can never judge a book by its cover. Saturday night was another example of that.
Will we be talking about UFC 332 for years to come? Absolutely not. But did it turn out to be an entertaining night of fights with a bunch of "holy crap" moments? It sure did.
In fact, UFC 332 set a handful of new records: the most knockouts (11), most first-round knockouts (nine), most consecutive knockouts (eight), and most consecutive first-round knockouts (seven) on a card in modern UFC history. There was a stretch where it felt like we may never need the judges again. We didn't get many back-and-forth, competitive fights, but if you tune in to MMA to watch bodies hit the canvas, hopefully the event satisfied your appetite.
Silva-Shevchenko is a must
This likely goes without saying, but we need to see Silva fight Valentina Shevchenko now more than ever. Silva put on an impressive performance against Wang and is a deserving champion given the circumstances, but let's be real: no one is going to view her as the best women's flyweight in the world until she gets a chance to prove it against longtime champ Shevchenko.
Fans have wanted to see Shevchenko and Silva fight for a while, and now that Silva has cemented herself as, at worst, the second-best flyweight in the world, there is no better time to book it. Shevchenko sent a message to Silva on X after UFC 332, essentially telling the new champ to keep the belt warm because she's coming back for it soon. Unfortunately, Shevchenko is still dealing with lingering injuries that forced her to vacate the title in September. But hopefully the women's flyweight GOAT can return in 2027, because we need to see this fight.
Talbott will challenge for a title one day
Talbott's first-round demolition of Figueiredo was one of UFC 332's most impressive performances on a night littered with them. Yes, he was a massive betting favorite and Figueiredo is well past his prime, but who had ever done that to the former flyweight champ? Nobody.
Talbott still needs another win before he's in the title picture, but it's starting to seem inevitable that the 28-year-old will fight for the belt sooner than later. His win over Figueiredo was so one-sided that I'm now awfully confident he can do the same thing against some of the very best bantamweights in the world.
Pinas is the future at middleweight
There were two highly touted middleweight prospects on the UFC 332 card, and one emerged as clearly the better talent.
Damian Pinas scored a brutal uppercut knockout of Andrey Pulyaev just 75 seconds into their preliminary bout. Less than two hours later, Ateba Gautier opened the main card with a shocking knockout loss to Roman Kopylov in what proved to be too big of a step up.
Gautier will be back, but for now, let's focus on Pinas. The 24-year-old Suriname-born, Aruba-based fighter should be all the rage in the middleweight division at the moment. He made his UFC debut in February and has begun his stint with three straight first-round knockouts. A streak like that won't be sustainable forever, but more importantly, Pinas has some legitimate skills and is very composed in the stand-up department, especially for his age. That, along with his devastating knockout power, will take him a long way.
