Zac Pauga picks up first UFC win, hands Jordan Wright his fourth-straight defeat at UFC Vegas 69
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, February 18, 2023, for UFC Vegas 69, going down live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.
Headlining the event is a women’s flyweight bout between no. 3 ranked former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade (24-9) and no. 10 ranked 23-year-old prodigy Erin Blanchfield (10-1).
Co-headlining the event is a light-heavyweight affair between Jordan Wright (12-4) and The Ultimate Fighter 30 finalist Zac Pauga (5-1).
Wright had gone 1-4 over his last five outings coming into tonight’s appearance, while Pauga was coming off his promotional debut defeat to former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman’s younger brother, Mohammed Usman back in August of last year.
Continue reading to see how this light-heavyweight encounter went down:
Official Result: Zac Pauga def. Jordan Wright via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Pauga presses Wright into the fence early on in the first and is able to hold him there the entire round. He’s landing short punches to the face of Wright and he’s controlling the action.
Wright didn’t even go for his first knee until halfway through the round, and once he began landing more, Pauga responded with knees to the body of his own.
Pauga connects with a vicious elbow that opens a nasty cut on Wright, and lands another not long thereafter.
Wright continues to get controlled by Pauga throughout the second round without showing any sign of urgency. This is quite frustrating to watch if you’re a Jordan Wright fan, because we’ve seen what he’s capable of in the clinch back in his UFC debut. He fought Ike Villanueva and TKO’d him in 91 seconds with a nasty gash courtesy of his knees.
That fight was a clinch-striking masterpiece, almost Anderson Silva-like. It was impressive to say the least, but we’re not seeing any of that brilliance from him tonight.
We have however seen something different out of him so far tonight, as this is the first time Wright has ever seen a third round.
Wright is able to keep the distance through the majority of the third, though he’s not looking too sharp on the feet and gets momentarily dropped at one point. Pauga took this fight over from the beginning and Wright seemingly allowed him to do so for the first ten minutes of it.
Zac Pauga picks up his first official victory inside the octagon after a 2-0 run on TUF, while Jordan Wright suffers his fourth-straight defeat tonight at UFC Vegas 69.
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