Natalia Silva may have walked out of UFC 332 as the new women’s flyweight champ, but that wasn’t the only thing fans were arguing about after the main event. Her unanimous decision win over Wang Cong quickly turned into a whole different debate, with viewers calling out Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier over what they felt was seriously one-sided commentary.
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In the main event fight, Natalia Silva came out firing, popping the jab and darting in and out while Wang Cong had her moments. Then the Brazilian turned it up in the second, cracking ‘The Joker’ with a nasty head kick that dropped her and put Silva firmly in control.
But Cong wasn’t going anywhere. She came alive in the third, dragging the champion into some scrappy exchanges. Silva mostly stayed on the outside, picked her shots, and did enough to keep Cong from stealing the round.
The championship rounds followed the same script. The 29-year-old Brazilian controlled the distance, landed the cleaner shots, and kept Cong chasing. Cong kept pushing, but Silva’s striking and Octagon control stayed a step ahead.
Then came the scorecards: 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46, all for Natalia Silva. But instead of the decision being discussed and debated, the real talking point online was the commentary.
A huge section of fans felt Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier made the fight sound far more competitive in Cong’s favor than what they were actually watching unfold inside the Octagon at UFC 332.
“Natalia Silva is basically winning the entire fight, and Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier won’t STFU about Cong,” one fan complained. Another wrote, “Natalia Silva is winning R4, but if you listened to DC and Rogan, you’d think Wang was dominating.”
Others were even harsher, with one fan claiming, “Rogan and DC making it sound like Wang was beating the s— out of Silva.” Another simply told the commentators, “Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan, please shut the f— up and stop glazing, Wang; she is losing.”
One particular moment drew criticism when Natalia Silva smiled after being hit by Cong, and Daniel Cormier suggested, “I think she hurt her.”
Nevertheless, this isn’t the first time Joe Rogan and ‘DC’ have found themselves in the crosshairs over a bout.
The veteran commentary duo has taken plenty of heat over the years from fans, fighters, and even fellow analysts who felt they were showing bias or missing some of the finer details during broadcasts.
One example that still gets brought up came at UFC 216 in October 2017. Fans and Cody Stamann took issue with the commentary, arguing that too much attention was being given to his opponent Tom Duquesnoy’s training background while his own takedowns and combinations weren’t getting nearly the same recognition. While Cody Stamann defeated Tom Duquesnoy via a close split decision, the obvious commentary bias stayed with him.
In fact, Daniel Cormier actually had to reach out to Stamann personally to apologize.
“I talked to DC [Daniel Cormier],” Stamann said on the Obviously Fight Talk podcast. “DC shot me a message on Twitter, and he said he was sorry, and I said, you know, not necessary. I’m a big fan of yours, and he had some good, kind words to say, so that was cool to hear from him.”
‘DC’ has been in the hot seat before, too. His commentary during Jan Błachowicz’s title defense against Israel Adesanya at UFC 259 drew plenty of criticism, with fans and media members accusing the broadcast team of getting too caught up in Adesanya’s feints.
There was also an unexpected side debate during Silva vs. Cong over the pronunciation of the challenger’s name. As one fan pointed out, “’Wong Tong’ is the correct pronunciation for Wang Cong, for anyone wondering.”
Another added, “The C in Cong should sound like a ‘ts’ instead of a hard T. My very Chinese wife is losing her mind listening to the commentary.”
Another fan added another layer to the broadcast discussion with, “Korean announcers are pronouncing it ‘Wang Choeng.'”
In the end, Natalia Silva got exactly what she came for at UFC 332: the belt, the win, and a clean sweep on the scorecards. But instead of the conversation being solely about the new champion, UFC 332 left plenty of fans talking about the broadcast itself.
Whether the commentary genuinely skewed toward Cong or simply reflected a different reading of a competitive fight at UFC 332, the reaction made one thing pretty clear: fans were paying just as much attention to what Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier were saying as they were to what Natalia Silva and Wang Cong were doing inside the Octagon.