Two Goodbyes and One Arrival: UFC 332 Was a Night of Changing Fortunes

SALT LAKE CITY — On a night when the UFC record book got shredded — eleven knockouts, the most in promotional history — the moments that will linger longest from UFC 332 didn't involve a single punch landing. They involved gloves coming off. Twice. One was a planned goodbye, announced weeks in advance and honored in front of a home crowd. The other was a gesture heavy with meaning and deliberately short on explanation. And between those two farewells — one certain, one unspoken — a 34-year-old Brazilian announced his arrival in a new division by nearly taking a man's head off with a knee.

The Crusher's last walk

Court McGee knew this was coming. He said so himself, weeks before UFC 332, in a video that was as plain-spoken as the man: he had signed the last fight of his last four-fight contract, and this was it. The Ultimate Fighter 11 winner from 2010 — the guy who beat Kris McCray to earn his way into the UFC and then simply never left — wanted his last one at home, in Utah, where he was 10-1 as a pro and where the crowd would know exactly who he was and what he had given.

It didn't go his way. Eric Nolan stopped him with punches at 3:26 of the third round, the eleventh and final knockout of a historically violent night at the Delta Center. McGee, 41, closes the book with 29 UFC appearances to his name — wins over Josh Neer, Robert Whittaker and Tim Means among them — and a career that stretched from the Spike TV era all the way to the Paramount+ era. There is no ambiguity here, no tease, no will-he-or-won't-he. This was the plan, and he saw it through to the end. Win or lose, the Crusher walked out on his own terms, in front of his people.

The maybe-last of a legend

Rafael dos Anjos made no such announcement. But the gesture was unmistakable: after Alexander Hernandez stopped him with punches at 3:12 of round two — the former lightweight champion dropped twice in the round, referee Mike Beltran stepping in as dos Anjos climbed back to his feet only to get dropped again — dos Anjos took his gloves off in the center of the Octagon.

In this sport, that gesture has one meaning. But dos Anjos, 41, stopped short of saying the words. He didn't place the gloves on the canvas. He didn't announce anything in the cage. And when he finally broke his silence afterward, it was a statement that somehow said everything and nothing at once: "Thank you for all the support. I couldn't win tonight, but I'm just blessed to be able to compete again after a rough two years. Three surgeries. I felt a little bit of ring rust. Everything was going according to plan until the last three seconds of the first round, where I got caught with a lead hook. It kind of messed me up. It is what it is. Alex did a great job. Life moves on."

Consider what "a rough two years" actually means. Dos Anjos hadn't fought since a knee injury against Geoff Neal at UFC 308 in 2024. Three surgeries in fourteen months. He came back for his 50th professional fight — a milestone almost nobody in this sport reaches — and ran into a 34-year-old in Hernandez who is now 4-1 in his last five and needed the win more. It is dos Anjos' fourth straight loss, the longest skid of his career; he hasn't won since December 2022.

And consider the career that might be ending. Dos Anjos won the lightweight title by dominating Anthony Pettis at UFC 185, defended it against Donald Cerrone, and lost it to Eddie Alvarez. He fought Khabib Nurmagomedov. He fought across three generations of the sport — Clay Guida and Gleison Tibau early, Rafael Fiziev and Mateusz Gamrot late. His 8 hours, 51 minutes and 31 seconds of Octagon time is the second-most in UFC history, behind only Max Holloway.

If this was the end, it ended the way so many great careers end: not with a coronation, but with a younger man standing over you and a quiet gesture nobody asked you to explain. "Life moves on." Maybe. Or maybe the gloves come back on. With RDA, you genuinely can't tell — and that is exactly what made the moment land so hard in Salt Lake City.

The arrival

If the night belonged to goodbyes, it also belonged to a hello. Johnny Walker fought at heavyweight for the first time — and made it look like he'd been lying to himself for years fighting anywhere else.

Three minutes and thirty-five seconds into the first round, Walker locked up Mick Parkin in the Thai clinch and drove a knee into his jaw that left the Englishman unconscious before he hit the canvas. It was one of the most violent knee knockouts in recent UFC history, it earned Walker a $100,000 Performance of the Night bonus, and it instantly made him the most interesting new heavyweight in the division.

The particulars: Walker is 34, now 23-10 with 21 of his 23 wins by stoppage, and he was coming off a loss to Dominick Reyes in April. Parkin, 31, falls to 10-2 — a second straight defeat, his first by stoppage, after an 18-month layoff. Walker celebrated by doing the Worm in the center of the Octagon, then hopped the fence to celebrate with his wife.

Then Joe Rogan asked him the obvious question — should he have been a heavyweight all along? Walker's answer, as he told Rogan, was pure Walker: "No, because I like to play hard. I don't like easy things. I nerfed myself to get to light heavyweight. I lost muscle mass and dehydrated my brain. Now, I am great, buff... I don't think there is no heavyweight that can fight like me."

He's probably right about the last part. There is not another heavyweight who moves like Johnny Walker, who takes the risks he takes, who celebrates like he celebrates. Whether that style survives the division's biggest punchers is the open question now — but for one night in Salt Lake City, the gamble looked like genius.

The night around them

It would be wrong to frame UFC 332 as only a night of farewells. Eleven knockouts — the UFC record, breaking the nine set just last September. Nine first-round finishes. A $2.7 million gate from 16,492 fans. Damian Pinas, Imanol Rodriguez and Roman Kopylov joined Walker with $100,000 bonuses, while seven more fighters took home $25,000 finish bonuses — including Payton Talbott, whose co-main event destruction of Deiveson Figueiredo already has people talking about a fight with Sean O'Malley.

And the machine keeps moving: the UFC used the weekend to start stacking UFC 335, with Charles Oliveira vs. Diego Lopes and Joe Pyfer vs. Bo Nickal joining a card topped by Alex Pereira vs. Sergei Pavlovich. But that is a story for another day. If you want the full blow-by-blow of Saturday's chaos, our fight-night recap has every finish.

Saturday was about the past and the future sharing one Octagon. McGee got his goodbye. Dos Anjos got his maybe. And Walker got his hello — delivered at full force, with a knee, in front of sixteen thousand people. In a sport that almost never pauses, UFC 332 paused twice. That's worth remembering.