Natalia Silva is the UFC women’s flyweight champion, and she has still never lost inside the organization.
Silva beat Wang Cong by unanimous decision at UFC 332 on Oct. 3 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, taking the vacant title on scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46. She moves to 9-0 in the UFC.
Two Judges Had It Razor Close
Look at those cards again. Two judges gave it to Silva by a single round. One saw it 49-46, a four-round sweep with a 10-8.
That spread tells you this was a fight decided on how you score volume against damage, and that Wang Cong did enough to make a championship round meaningful. A vacant title fight going five hard rounds is exactly what a division wants when its belt comes loose.
Silva has now built a nine-fight UFC run without a loss, which in a division this deep is the kind of thing that stops being a streak and starts being a reign.
The Card Around Her Was Violent
Payton Talbott finished Deiveson Figueiredo by TKO at 2:09 of the first round in the co-main event. Figueiredo is a former flyweight and bantamweight champion. That is a serious scalp for Talbott and a brutal night for a fighter whose legacy is already secure.
Alexander Hernandez stopped Rafael dos Anjos in the second round. Johnny Walker knocked out Mick Parkin with a knee in the first.
Four finishes and a five-round title fight. Salt Lake City got its money back.
Court McGee Walked Away
The other story from that night deserves its own moment. Court McGee, 41, retired after a third-round TKO loss to Eric Nolan.
McGee won The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 in 2010 and spent more than 16 years and 25 fights in the UFC. He beat Robert Whittaker in 2013, before Whittaker became a champion. He is one of those fighters whose record never fully described what he was, which is a guy nobody wanted to fight on short notice for a decade and a half.
Nolan cut his own post-fight interview with Joe Rogan short so McGee could have the microphone. That is the correct thing to do and almost nobody does it.
What Comes Next for Silva
The flyweight picture reorganizes around her now. A champion who is undefeated in nine UFC appearances does not have an obvious challenger, which is a good problem and a short-lived one.
The UFC’s October schedule keeps moving fast: Fight Night on Oct. 10 in Las Vegas, Edmonton on Oct. 17, UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 24 with Volkanovski vs. Evloev, and Moicano vs. Nolan on Oct. 31.
Silva will not be on any of them. She just earned the right to wait.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.