The problem is five inches of height and a decade of wear. Deiveson Figueiredo still wins fights by getting to a hip and a neck. Payton Talbott is a switch-stance bantamweight who just spent fifteen minutes making a former champion miss. Tomorrow night in Salt Lake City, one of those ideas has to die.
Written by The Cage Scholar · Edited by @DudeGameison ·
Video prediction
Miss
Article · Hit
Payton Talbott
TKO (punches) · R1 2:09
The night
Updated
Talbott by TKO (punches), Round 1, 2:09. A right hand dropped Figueiredo, a knee hurt him again, and follow-up punches ended it. Figueiredo was 0 for 2 on takedowns. Pick was Payton Talbott by decision or TKO, rounds 2–3, 68/32. Hit on the winner. Miss on the clock.
Talbott blitzed from the opening bell and never let the wrestling start. The right hand put Figueiredo down early. The knee kept him there. The finish was punches at 2:09, before a body lock or a guillotine could exist. Two shots, neither completed. Five significant strikes the other way.
The tape had the shape right. Length against a former flyweight champion, the standing minutes as Talbott’s sport, and the knockout path named as the calf kick into the switch right once the lead leg died. Range was the lean. Range ended it.
What it missed was how little of round 1 Figueiredo got. The pick gave him a fresh-hip window and a live neck. Neither showed up. The finish was not a late card or a round-two accumulation. It was the first exchange the 5'10" man wanted. The neck did not travel. 135 did to the shot what Yan, Umar, and Song had already shown, only faster.
The preview
UFC 332, Saturday, October 3, Delta Center, Salt Lake City. Three rounds. 135. Co-main, under Natalia Silva vs. Wang Cong for the vacant women’s flyweight title. The tape says size is most of the fight, and not all of it.
Why this fight matters
Figueiredo is 25-7-1, 38, 5'5", 68-inch reach, orthodox. Two-time UFC flyweight champion. He moved to 135 in late 2023 and started the run the way a former champion is supposed to: decision over Rob Font, rear-naked choke on Cody Garbrandt, decision over Marlon Vera. Then the division answered. Petr Yan out-landed him 121–53 over five rounds. Cory Sandhagen stopped him in round two on a knee injury. Umar Nurmagomedov decisioned him. Song Yadong guillotined him at 4:42 of round two in May. Two losses in a row. Four losses in the last five. The finishing résumé is still real. The bantamweight version of Figgy is a smaller man hunting the same entries against longer ones.
Talbott is 11-1, 28, Reno Academy of Combat, 5'10", 70-inch reach, switch. UFC 5-1. He knocked Yanis Ghemmouri out in 19 seconds, stopped Cameron Saaiman, rear-naked-choked Nick Aguirre, then lost a wrestling decision to Raoni Barcelos — eight takedowns the other way. He answered with decisions over Felipe Lima and Henry Cejudo. The Cejudo night was 134–60 in significant strikes and three takedowns of his own. That was December 6, 2025. This is his first fight of 2026. He has said the layoff let him reinvent the game. A win over Figueiredo is a ranked name on a main card. A loss is the Barcelos tape repeating against a better finisher.
What the night means: either a 38-year-old former champion still has a neck that ends prospects, or 135 has another long switch-hitter who does not care that the other man used to hold a belt at 125.
What the tape numbers actually mean
Figueiredo lands 2.57 significant strikes per minute at 53 percent and eats 3.43. Defense 49 percent. Takedowns 1.61 per 15 at 34 percent. Takedown defense 57 percent. Submission average 1.2. He is not a volume striker at this weight. He is a closer who uses the double and the body lock to get to a guillotine or a rear-naked choke. Against the long men, the output collapses: 6 strikes against Sandhagen, 8 against Umar, 9 against Song. The wrestling is the whole plan because the boxing is no longer the plan.
Talbott lands 6.62 at 56 percent and eats 3.41. Defense 46 percent. Takedowns 0.78 per 15. Takedown defense 77 percent. He is a switch-stance volume striker who can wrestle enough to bank a round and who has already shown he can be wrestled for fifteen minutes by a specialist. The Cejudo tape is the ceiling. The Barcelos tape is the floor. Figueiredo is not Barcelos’s chain. He is a better finisher with worse takedown defense.
Height: Talbott by five inches. Reach: Talbott by two. Age: Figueiredo by ten. Stance: orthodox into switch. None of that is a footnote. It is the first problem.
Striking
Talbott’s A-game is long switch kickboxing: jab from either side, calf kick to freeze the lead leg, rear hand when the smaller man dips for the shot. He out-threw Cejudo by more than double and never needed the finish. Against Figueiredo the same shape should be easier. Yan, Sandhagen, Umar, and Song all made Figgy miss from range. Talbott is not as sharp as Yan. He is longer than all of them except Sandhagen, and he throws more.
Figueiredo’s striking at 135 is the counter left and the body kick on the way in. It was enough for Garbrandt and Vera. It has not been enough for anyone who can circle and kick for three rounds. If he stands in Talbott’s switch pocket for a full round, the calf kicks become the story before the wrestling starts.
Grappling
This is Figueiredo’s fight if it exists. Double leg off the calf kick, body lock, guillotine on the shot, rear-naked choke if he gets the back the way he got Garbrandt’s. Song already showed the other side of that tree: Figgy shot, got front-headlocked, and tapped to a guillotine at 4:42 of round two. Talbott’s 77 percent takedown defense is real until a specialist chains. Barcelos chained. Figueiredo’s accuracy on the shot is 34 percent. One clean entry is live. A night of entries is not the base case.
Clinch
Dangerous both ways. Figueiredo wants the underhook and the trip. Talbott wants the long knee and the elbow on the break, which is how a 5'10" man punishes a 5'5" man who cannot finish the shot. If Figgy stalls in a collar-tie, Talbott is the one scoring.
Pace
Round 1 is Figueiredo’s best window — fresh hips, before the calf kick steals the drive. Rounds 2–3 are Talbott’s sport if the first shot does not stick. Ten months off is the honest question on Talbott’s engine. Fifteen minutes against Cejudo is the honest answer. Figueiredo’s engine at 38 is the other question, and the Yan five-rounder already answered it the wrong way.
Figueiredo’s keys
Shoot off the first calf kick, not after the third.
Body lock over the running double. Talbott’s hips stuff linear shots.
Guillotine on the way up, not after he frames. Song already published the other version.
Do not restart the kickboxing. Range is a loss.
Make it ugly in the first five minutes so the switch jab never settles.
Talbott’s keys
Jab from the long side. Do not pocket-box a man who wants the neck.
Calf kick the lead leg so the shot dies in the open.
Sprawl and knee. The Barcelos win was wrestling. This win should be the opposite.
Circle off the fence. Figueiredo’s office is the cage.
Bank round one on volume so a late scramble cannot steal the card.
X-factors
The layoff. Talbott has not fought since December. He says the time was a rebuild. A rebuild that misses the first timing window against a guillotine hunter is how prospects lose to old champions.
The knee. Sandhagen’s stoppage of Figueiredo was a knee injury, not a clean knockout. It still counts as a hole. A 38-year-old lead leg against a switch calf-kicker is not a theoretical risk.
Size at 135. Figueiredo’s best nights at bantamweight have been against men he could physically move — Garbrandt, Font, Vera. Talbott is the other shape. Cejudo was the other shape too, and Talbott beat him.
Judging. If Figueiredo lands two takedowns and loses the striking, this becomes a 29-28 argument. The Yan and Umar cards already showed how judges score a smaller man who cannot hold position.
Prediction
Lean: Payton Talbott by decision or TKO, rounds 2–3. Call it 68/32. The lean is length, volume, and a former flyweight champion who has been out-struck by every long bantamweight he has faced since Yan. The 32 is the neck. Figueiredo only needs one clean entry. He has made a career of finding it.
Alternate path: Figueiredo by submission, round 1 or 2 — guillotine or rear-naked choke off a shot Talbott defends too high, the Garbrandt finish against a man who has been off for ten months. The knockout path the other way is the calf kick into a switch right once the lead leg dies. Do not pick a Figueiredo decision. If he is winning, he is finishing. If he is not finishing, Talbott is ahead on the feet.
What a Talbott win would mean: the Cejudo night was a rank statement, and 135 has another long prospect who can be trusted with former champions. What a Figueiredo win would mean: the neck still travels, and the frame was priced instead of the finisher.