Preview: UFC 332 ‘Silva vs. Wang’
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to Utah for UFC 332, a solid enough card badly in need of a main event. The headliner, which sees Natalia Silva take on Cong Wang for the freshly vacant women’s flyweight title, is stretched thin as a main event, but the rest of the main card makes a lot of sense. Top bantamweight prospect Payton Talbott gets his next test against former flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo, and the rest of this slate is matched for action; King Green and Esteban Ribovics should have a barnburner, knockout artist Roberto Soldic finally makes his UFC debut, and dynamic middleweight Ateba Abega Gautier looks for his biggest win yet against Roman Kopylov.
UFC Women’s Flyweight Championship
Natalia Silva (20-5-1) vs. Cong Wang (10-1)
Odds: Silva (-205), Wang (+170)
Cong Wang challenges Natalia Silva for the vacant UFC women’s flyweight title
This fight is stretched thin in almost every promotional aspect, as it doesn’t feel much like a headliner or title fight and might not even be all that exciting, but it’s at least an intellectually interesting fight that should tell us something about whoever winds up as the UFC’s new flyweight champion.
Natalia Silva’s UFC debut in 2022 was a bit of an afterthought — especially coming off a two-and-a-half-year layoff — but once she hit the Octagon, it was quickly apparent that she would be a problem for most of the division; Jasmine Jasudavicius was an interesting prospect in her own right, and Silva made her look absolutely glacial while outmaneuvering her over three rounds.
Silva has a case as one of the fastest fighters in the UFC relative to her division, which has made up for some bad process; she confusingly attempted to wrestle with the much stronger Tereza Bleda before finding a knockout, and she generally leaves a lot of defensive openings that could be taken advantage of — provided someone can actually catch up to her level of speed.
Silva finally clinched her title shot with a January win over Rose Namajunas, but that fight might have hurt her stock in the process; she was still clearly the faster fighter, but Namajunas was both long enough to hang with her at range and patient enough not to charge into Silva’s offense. The result was a tepid affair in which Silva looked reticent to lead against someone who could control range and cause some damage; that nearly resulted in a decision loss to Namajunas but also figured to be absolutely poisonous against the technical mastery of champion Valentina Shevchenko.
But with Shevchenko becoming the latest UFC champion to vacate her title, that point is moot for now — though Cong Wang could still be a tricky opponent. Unlike Silva, Wang was far from an obvious title contender when this fight was announced, but she’s an obvious talent with a built-in backstory for a Shevchenko fight if she wins the belt, as the two have a kickboxing rivalry stemming from a Wang win shortly before Shevchenko’s 2015 UFC debut. The UFC picked Wang up in 2024, and she immediately looked like a natural who figured to be fast-tracked to a title fight, as she kept up an active schedule before disaster struck; a matchup against Gabriella Fernandes was clearly going her way until she got stunned with a counter and choked out on the mat, handing her her first mixed martial arts defeat in a massive upset.
But “The Joker” has thankfully learned from the loss in terms of actually respecting what her opponents have to offer, and after a few performances that were a bit too patient, Wang is now balancing violence and thoughtfulness as effectively as ever. Even if she’s being rushed a bit into this title fight, Wang has looked every bit of a contender in her two 2026 performances; she balanced defensive wrestling and offensive output masterfully against Eduarda Moura, then slowly broke down Tracy Cortez on the feet for three rounds of a one-sided fight.
With the UFC matching Wang against wrestlers in her last few fights, it’s hard to know exactly how she’ll take on the challenge of Silva’s speedy striking — though the leg kicks she used to chop down Cortez should be quite an effective weapon. There’s also the curiosity around this being each woman’s first five-round fight; Silva hasn’t seemed to tire herself out with such a movement-heavy approach, but that’s typically an inefficient style that causes most fighters to fade in the championship rounds.
It wouldn’t necessarily be a shock if Silva coasts to a win here through her speed or experience advantages, but Wang seems worth the flier here; she figures to be steady for five rounds and understands range well enough that she could frustrate Silva much like Namajunas did. And while Silva can wrestle a bit, Wang has shown enough in terms of her initial takedown defense that it doesn’t stand out as a clear path to victory. It might take her a while to get the ball rolling in terms of momentum, but the pick is Wang via decision.
Jump To »
Silva vs. Wang
Figueiredo vs. Talbott
Green vs. Ribovics
Soldic vs. Williams
<a href="https://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/5/Preview-UFC-332-S
Source: sports.yahoo.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.