UFC 332 Aftermath: Pinas's 75-Second Statement, Soldic's Debut, and a Wild Boxing Weekend

SALT LAKE CITY — Forty-eight hours after the loudest night in UFC history, the echoes are still sorting themselves out. A 24-year-old from Aruba broke a man's jaw in 75 seconds and got the broadcast booth reaching for all-time superlatives. A Croatian kickboxing star finally made his long-awaited Octagon walk — and nearly got starched 90 seconds in. An Argentine lightweight settled a hotel beef with a first-round demolition, then revealed his post-fight trash talk was never aimed at the man he just knocked out. And across the Atlantic in Birmingham, Ben Whittaker survived the scariest three minutes of his career to punch his ticket toward Dmitry Bivol. Welcome to the Monday fight roundup.

Pinas breaks a jaw, breaks the booth's composure

The story of the weekend is 75 seconds long. Damian Pinas, the 24-year-old Surinamese-born middleweight fighting out of Aruba, needed just over a minute to turn Andrey Pulyaev unconscious with a short uppercut up the middle at 1:15 of the first round — the first knockout loss of Pulyaev's career, and, as Dana White revealed at the post-fight press conference, a broken jaw from a single punch. "Damian won by vicious knockout, and he broke his jaw," White said while explaining his $100,000 Performance of the Night bonus picks.

Then Pinas picked up the microphone and said the scariest thing heard all weekend: "That was not my full power again." He told Joe Rogan he hadn't even warmed up — he was still cold when the fight ended. The broadcast booth lost its composure. "I've never seen nothing like him, man," Daniel Cormier said. "I think he might be the single biggest power puncher I've seen since we started doing this." Rogan backed him all the way, reaching for the Julian Jackson comparison, and Jon Anik invoked Francis Ngannou against Alistair Overeem in Detroit. Pinas is 11-1 with ten knockouts, has won six straight by first-round knockout, and called for a Top-10 opponent afterward. The middleweight division has a problem, and its name is Damian Pinas. Read the full deep dive on the 75-second knockout machine.

Soldic's debut: dropped early, classy late

The most anticipated UFC debut of the year nearly ended in disaster inside 90 seconds. Khaos Williams, a veteran of 11 Octagon appearances, dropped Roberto Soldic with a counter right hand in the opening round and threatened to turn the former two-division KSW champion's arrival into a cautionary tale. Instead, Soldic did what veterans do: he survived, adjusted, and took over. A dominant second round and a clear third gave him the unanimous decision, 29-28, 29-27 and 29-27 — the only decision on the UFC 332 main card.

At the post-fight press conference, Soldic was refreshingly honest about the moment that could have unraveled him. "I didn't rush. I just took my win," the 22-4 Croatian said. "I don't want to prove I have to kill somebody. I have to win and just show my skills, and that's it." After years as one of the most dangerous strikers outside the UFC, he's 1-0 inside it — and the welterweight division just got a lot more interesting.

Ribovics' trash talk had a different addressee

Esteban Ribovics opened the UFC 332 pay-per-view by dropping King Green three times on the way to a 4:08 first-round TKO — the eighth first-round knockout of the night, the one that officially broke the promotion's single-card record. Then, as referee Herb Dean waved it off, Ribovics shouted at Green, and everyone assumed the bad blood was about Green's habit of talking to opponents mid-fight.

It wasn't. At the post-fight presser, Ribovics revealed the "keep talking" was aimed past Green entirely — at professional boxer Arnold Barboza Jr., Green's friend, over an altercation outside the fighter hotel the day before. Ribovics had even prepared for Green's in-cage chatter by having a teammate mimic it in sparring. The two fighters embraced afterward; the beef, it turns out, was with the boxer. Green, who missed weight and forfeited 20 percent of his purse, took his beating and the confusion with grace.

Quick hits: Talbott's callout, Gautier's vow, Vettori's skid

Payton Talbott's co-main event statement keeps looking bigger: a 2:09 first-round TKO of former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo, his second straight win over a former champion — and Talbott used the moment to call for a fight with Sean O'Malley. The bantamweight division has been put on notice.

Roman Kopylov spoiled Ateba Gautier's momentum with a 3:12 first-round TKO, handing the Cameroonian his first UFC loss (11-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC). Gautier noticed the fans celebrating his defeat — and answered with an Instagram statement vowing to use every one of them as motivation. And Marvin Vettori's nightmare continued: Ismail Naurdiev outpointed the former title challenger 29-28 on all three cards, stretching Vettori's losing skid to five straight. At 19-10-1, the Italian is running out of road.

Birmingham: Whittaker survives the 12th round from hell

Ben Whittaker is the IBF mandatory challenger at light heavyweight — but he took the hard road to get there. The 29-year-old Olympic silver medalist (13-0-1, 9 KOs) pitched a near-shutout against Conor Wallace (17-2, 12 KOs) for nine rounds in Birmingham, boxing beautifully behind his jab and sprinkling in the showboating. Then the fight flipped. Wallace hurt him with a heavy southpaw left in the 10th, punished him for carrying his hands low in the 11th, and had him out on his feet in the 12th — three trips to the canvas, none of them ruled a knockdown by the referee, in a final round that has since gone viral and drawn allegations of referee bias from pros across the sport.

The cards read 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113, and the win lines up a shot at unified champion Dmitry Bivol — though with Bivol tentatively set to face Callum Smith on December 12 and the IBF last in the sanctioning-body rotation, Whittaker will likely wait until late 2027 or early 2028. Promoter Eddie Hearn floated the alternative: a Wallace rematch. "The rematch will be a big, big fight," Hearn said. "He deserves another chance." Whittaker's reply was pure spite: "If he wants to run it back and get a beat down again, he can." Read our full fight-night report.

Fawaz defends, Kamara debuts, Dubois-Wardley 2 is official

Elsewhere on a busy boxing weekend: Bilal Fawaz (13-1-1, 5 KOs) retained his British and Commonwealth super-welterweight titles in style, twice dropping Eithan James (17-3) in the eighth round before the stoppage came at 1:14. It was Fawaz's second defense since winning the Lonsdale Belt in February — and his quickest win yet.

Highly touted prospect Odel Kamara made a winning start to his pro career with a three-round stoppage of Thodoris Ritzakis at super-welterweight on the Birmingham undercard, and Ibraheem Sulaimaan (12-0) retained the English super-featherweight title with a unanimous decision over Sonny Hardy — surviving a point deduction for holding in the seventh. And the heavyweight division got its next date: Daniel Dubois vs. Fabio Wardley 2 is set for October 17 on DAZN pay-per-view, with the two already clashing at their pre-fight face-off.

Coming up: Vegas, Casablanca, Edmonton, Abu Dhabi

The machine doesn't stop. Saturday brings UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Duncan at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas (Paramount+; main card 8 p.m. ET, prelims 5 p.m. ET) — No. 5 middleweight Brendan Allen carries a three-fight win streak into five rounds with No. 10 Christian Leroy Duncan, unbeaten in five, with Jai Herbert vs. Matheus Camilo in the co-main. The same day, PFL Africa: Morocco hits the Mohammed V Sports Complex in Casablanca — Abdoulaye Kane vs. Badr Medkouri headlines at heavyweight, with bantamweight, welterweight and lightweight tournament semifinals on the card (PFL app, DAZN and ESPN+, 2 p.m. ET). Then it's UFC Edmonton (Buckley vs. Malott) on October 17 and UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on October 24. October is stacked. We'll be here for all of it.