The future of the women's flyweight division will be at stake as a vacant 125-pound title bout headlines UFC's return to Salt Lake City, Utah, on Saturday at UFC 332. The event, which will feature the first complete UFC main card to air live on CBS, will emanate from the Delta Center as top-rated flyweights Natalia Silva and Wang Cong square off for the title recently vacated by two-time champion Valentina Shevchenko, who is still recovering from injuries that have sidelined her for nearly a full year since her last fight in November 2025. In the co-feature, rising bantamweight prospect Payton Talbott takes on former two-time flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo.
As we draw closer to this weekend's fights, let's take a closer look at the biggest storylines surrounding the event. red event and UFC Fight Night is included with your subscription! Plans start as low as $8.99/month or $89.99/year! For years, fans have wondered who would carry the torch for the UFC at 125 pounds once the decorated and extended reign of Shevchenko, a two-time champion, comes to an end.
But Shevchenko, the 38-year-old living legend who holds the UFC women's record for most total title defenses with nine, never handed off the belt in the traditional sense considering lingering ligament damange to her back and shoulder forced her to vacate her title, some 10 months after her last title defense against former two-time strawweight champion Zhang Weili. That opened the door to a new crop of fighters aggressively seeking their breakthrough moment (along with veteran contenders like former champion Alexa Grasso, who could face the winner should her rival Shevchenko remain sidelined). Silva, a 29-year-old striker from Brazil, will bring her 14-fight win streak (including an 8-0 run since her 2022 UFC debut) into Saturday's title bout against Cong, a 34-year-old native of China who owns a 2015 kickboxing victory over Shevchenko.
The bout is expected to be a high-paced showdown between two strikers as the high-volume Silva enters as the betting favorite against the technical counterpunching of Cong to find out who has next at 125 pounds. Talbott, 28-year-old prospect from Las Vegas who was raised in Reno, Nevada, is 5-1 since his 2023 debut and coming off the biggest victory of his young Octagon career in December when he sent former two-division champion Henry Cejudo to retirement in a decision win. Now, snapping a 10-month layoff, the exciting and well-rounded fighter looks to work his way into the top 15 at 135 pounds in Saturday's co-main event when he takes on another former champion in the former two-time flyweight king Figueiredo.
Even though Figueiredo enters having lost four of his last five, all of his defeats came against elite competition, which makes him a strong measuring stick as to whether Talbott is ready to start challenging himself against the top level of the division. He was dominant in his last outing 😮💨 @PaytonTalbott plans on extending his win streak to 3 in the co-main event at #UFC332! [ OCT 3 | LIVE at 8pmET on @ParamountPlus and @CBS ] pic.twitter.com/CKTr4A66OZ According to the oddsmakers, it's anything but automatic considering Ribovics, a 32-year-old native of Argentina, is nearly a 3-to-1 betting favorite and less than two months removed from sending 40-year-old legend Edson Barboza into retirement via knockout. But the 40-year-old Green has beaten the odds before as a veteran of 55 fights throughout an 18-year pro career as he sets for his 32nd walk to the Octagon.
Green's current four-fight win streak has become a fun storyline to watch given his dangerous style of fighting with his hands down and, in part, because his win streak followed a stretch in which he was finished three times in a span of four fights. Green will be fighting for the fourth time in 2026 against Ribovics and the fifth time in the past 10 months. He's also less than three months removed from a chaotic first-round TKO win against Terrance McKinney at UFC 329 where Green was battered for most of Round 1 only to rally for a stoppage with one second to go.
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