Opinion: UFC 332 is the warning sign fans shouldnt ignore in the Paramount era

The UFC 332 fight card has been universally panned by fans and media. | 📷: UFC promotional image


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With less than a month before UFC 332 was set to take place, the Ultimate Fighting Championship finally announced the main event for the Salt Lake City event. While it was long expected that Valentina Shevchenko would defend her women’s flyweight title against Natalia Silva, Shevchenko pulled up lame with an injury and vacated the title. Thus, Silva remains in the championship contest with ... Cong Wang.

To say there was disappointment would be an understatement. Silva more than deserved her opportunity at the title, but Wang? According to the UFC’s own rankings, she’s all the way down at No. 8. There are several other competitors who would be far more deserving than Wang. Manon Fiorot may have already had her shot at the title, but she has won a fight in dominant fashion since then, and her fight with Shevchenko was close to begin with. Erin Blanchfield’s only UFC loss came to Fiorot, and her track record is far more proven than Wang’s.

It seems the UFC would rather not blow up Fight Night events than put forth the best possible numbered event. Fiorot is scheduled to face Alexa Grasso this weekend. As for Blanchfield, she’ll be fighting Jasmine Jasudavicius in Edmonton later next month. Of course, each of those Fight Night cards has more depth than UFC 332, and numbered events are supposed to be the cream of the crop. What the hell is the UFC’s justification for giving the less-deserving Wang the title shot?

Cong Wang’s title shot against Natalia Silva is difficult to justify

The broadcast team for the Paris event last week tried to claim it’s because Wang has a victory over Shevchenko in kickboxing from more than a decade ago. That’s all well and good ... but Shevchenko isn’t in the fight. What the hell does that have to do with Silva? A better option would have been to promote Blanchfield into the contest and let Wang fight Jasudavicius, which would have given Wang more preparation time than she has for her fight with Silva. Plus, giving American fans an American to root for in the main event might have proved beneficial for ticket sales. Wang’s fighting style may be more fun than Blanchfield’s, but personality sells better, and the language barrier hurts Wang’s marketability in North America.

UFC 332 may be a sign of what’s coming in the Paramount era

However, after coming up with that idea and trying to figure out why the UFC didn’t take that approach, I came to the realization that I should expect more events like this. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more shocked I was that we didn’t get a numbered event this blatantly bad sooner.

Plenty of others and I have long decried how underwhelming the beginning of the Paramount era has been. I tried to come up with logical reasons, with the one that made the most sense being that the UFC needed to renegotiate contracts with champions and other big names given that pay-per-view points were now a thing of the past. It’s more than plausible that it would take months to get that figured out with each subsequent champion.

Of course, that also brings up another point. Even if numbered events — formerly pay-per-views — are still supposed to be the premium events, the UFC is no longer dependent on buys. If it’s no longer dependent on buys, the UFC also no longer feels the same obligation to put forth a top-quality product.

This isn’t an accusation that the UFC doesn’t care whatsoever about the product it gives its fans. It can’t completely dog things; it would be on the road to ruin if it did. But the UFC can ask what it’s out if it puts on a subpar event and conclude it isn’t out anything, at least in the short term. Hell, it could probably get away with two or three numbered events like UFC 332 a year. That we made it to October in the Paramount era before getting one like this is a bit of a surprise.

UFC 332 stands out even among this year’s weaker numbered events

Perhaps some would argue UFC 325 was of lower quality, but it at least had a champion on the card — remember, Shevchenko vacated the title — and featured anticipated fights between Benoit St. Denis and Dan Hooker and Mauricio Ruffy and Rafael Fiziev.

UFC 332 has Deiveson Figueiredo in the co-main event. Sure, he’s a former two-time flyweight champion, but he’s also lost four of his last five fights, and none of those losses were close. By all appearances, he’s a lamb being led to the slaughter for the benefit of Payton Talbott.

And while I’m excited about the signing of Roberto Soldic, there are plenty of UFC fans who have never heard his name and don’t care about organizations outside the UFC. It isn’t like he’s debuting in front of his countrymen, either, the way Salahdine Parnasse did. UFC 332 is very much in a league of its own in terms of quality, at least for this year.

The UFC had other options to strengthen UFC 332

Perhaps most frustrating is that it feels very much like the UFC could have done more outside of the women’s flyweight title to boost the card. Alex Pereira has proved many times he’s willing to take fights on short notice. Given that he doesn’t have to cut weight if he stays at heavyweight, it feels like it wouldn’t be as big of an ask. A fight between Pereira and Josh Hokit wouldn’t have visa issues to contend with and makes sense. Besides, they seem to have beef now. Plus, Hokit’s fight with Derrick Lewis was made on similarly short notice.

The women’s bantamweight title has been sidelined even longer than the women’s flyweight title. How about an interim title fight between Amanda Nunes and Joselyne Edwards? I understand there’s no guarantee Nunes would accept it — she stated earlier in the year that she didn’t want to take an interim fight — but we’re more than eight months past when she was originally scheduled to fight Kayla Harrison. At what point is it time to move on and keep the division moving?

UFC fans may have to get used to numbered cards like this

There’s no doubt in my mind the UFC could have done more to shore up UFC 332. There have been rumblings for several weeks about what fights would be added, and the development of the card was in stasis. It isn’t like the card was devastated by injuries and there wasn’t enough time to find adequate replacements; it was bad from the beginning.

Given that knowledge, we’ve got to accept that there are going to be more cards like this going forward. After all, all the events are now “free.” There’s no longer any need to persuade anyone to buy anything.