UFC 332 Is Scrambling for a Main Event and the Rumors Are Bleak

The UFC is only four weeks out from its annual appearance in Salt Lake City for UFC 332. Utah has been home to some of the most iconic moments in UFC history, such as Kamaru Usman vs Leon Edwards 2, where Edwards landed a Hail Mary knockout to secure the UFC welterweight title; Dustin Poirier vs Justin Gaethje 2, where Gaethje brutally knocked out Poirier to secure the BMF belt; and Alex Pereira vs Khalil Rountree JR, one of the best back-and-forth title fights of 2024.

This year, however, the UFC is struggling to find a main event to headline its trip to the Delta Center, and the rumors about who will headline are looking bleak for MMA fans.

The Light Heavyweight Plan

The original plan for the UFC was to headline the event with an interim title fight between Paulo Costa vs Jiří Procházka. This was already a questionable matchup for an interim belt for several reasons; the main one being Procházka’s last fight, where he was knocked out cold by the current light heavyweight champion, Carlos Ulberg. On the other side of the table, we have Paulo Costa, who seemingly reached his ceiling at middleweight with defeats to Adesanya, Whittaker, and Strickland. He has only captured a single victory since his move up to light heavyweight. However, the fight has fallen apart on Costa's side. Jiri is now rumored to fight Navajo Stirling in November, and Magomed Ankalev has claimed that Paulo Costa has declined to fight him almost three times.

The Co-Main Event Upgrade

Once the light heavyweight fight fell apart, the backup plan was to upgrade the Co-main event Valentina Shevchenko VS Natalia Silva as the new main event for UFC 332. This was also seen as undesirable for fans. Shevchenko’s last four fights went the full 25 minutes, with her fights against Zhang Weili and the trilogy fight with Alexa Grasso being particularly boring. Natalia Silva was also coming off a questionable win over Rose Namajunas, with many of the fans and media scorecards scoring the bout to Thug Rose. Today, it was announced that Shevchenko has now pulled out of the fight with Silva due to an injury.

The Scramble For A New Headliner

With Shevchenko out, the UFC has very few options, and according to the MMA X account @MagicM_MMABets, the UFC is considering Silva vs. Cong for the interim women’s flyweight championship, potentially elevating the matchup to the top of the October 3rd event.

While @MagicM_MMABets has successfully reported UFC fights in the past, such as Garry VS Shavkat and Buckley VS Covington, this particular matchup has not been officially confirmed by the UFC or verified by a major MMA reporter. If this rumor is true, this will make UFC 332 have the weakest-numbered headliner of the year by a large margin. Although she possesses a win over Valentina Shevchenko in kickboxing in 2015, Wang Cong is only on a measly four-fight win streak, ranked 8th in the division, and has suffered a defeat to an unranked fighter, Gabriella Fernandes, only five fights ago. Putting an unnecessary interim championship on the line would not make this matchup worthy of headlining a numbered event; it would only expose how desperate the UFC has become to salvage this wreck of a card.

Dana White announced at a press conference Tuesday that an official main event for UFC 332 would be announced this week. UFC fans will soon learn whether the promotion has found a worthy replacement or has officially turned UFC 332 into the weakest-numbered event of the year.