UFC 332 delivers nine first-round knockouts, then Silva wins a five-round title fight

UFC 332 ended Saturday, October 3, with a rare split between the pace of its undercard and the shape of its championship fight. Nine of the 14 bouts in Salt Lake City ended by KO or TKO in Round 1. Two more ended by KO or TKO later, leaving three decisions. ESPN reported that both the nine first-round knockouts and 11 total knockouts set UFC single-card records. The completed UFC event ledger supports those current-card totals.

This was not a card whose only significant moment was a statistical milestone. The final result was Natalia Silva's unanimous decision over Wang Cong for the vacant women's flyweight championship. All three judges favored Silva, 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46, according to UFC's main-card recap. The fight lasted five rounds after a night dominated by early stoppages.

The ninth opening-round finish

Esteban Ribovics' first-round TKO of King Green at 4:08 moved the opening-round count to eight. Payton Talbott's first-round TKO of Deiveson Figueiredo in the following co-main event made it nine. That sequence gave the card another record-setting finish before the title fight began.

The broader count is striking too. UFC's completed event results list nine first-round KO/TKO outcomes, a second-round TKO by Alexander Hernandez, a third-round TKO by Eric Nolan, and decisions for Ismail Naurdiev, Roberto Soldić and Silva. That is 11 stoppages and three decisions across 14 fights. The graphic above shows the distribution without using unlicensed fight photographs or clips.

The title was won at a different pace

Silva and Wang gave the night its contrasting endurance test. UFC describes Silva using movement and varied striking to build an early lead, while Wang found more success later and landed her best shots near the end of Round 5. The judges' cards, not a stoppage, decided the championship. A full-distance title fight was not an anticlimax simply because most earlier bouts ended quickly.

The verified result is that Silva is champion. A knockout count can describe the event's unusual tempo, but it cannot rank the quality or stakes of every fight. The title fight asked a different question: who could control enough rounds against a dangerous opponent over the full championship distance. Silva answered it on three scorecards.

How the record was checked

Source note: ESPN's 10:11 p.m. Eastern story reported nine first-round knockouts and 11 total knockouts before the main event. UFC's introductory main-card copy still says eight first-round finishes, but its completed bout-by-bout event page lists Talbott's subsequent first-round TKO as the ninth. We counted the completed ledger and attribute the historical record comparison to ESPN. No UFC or broadcast footage is reproduced here.