Is Zac Pauga any good, or is he falling victim to the human 'one round' machine?
I'm not sold on him, but he looked decent on TUF. He was by far the guy with the most well-rounded game and the best fundamentals. He's actually a natural 205er who stacked on some weight in order to jump on the Heavyweight season solely for the chance at getting into the UFC. He comes from an athletic background -- collegiate football and rugby, I think -- and got into MMA in his 20s as a way to stay fit and learn relevant skills for his job in law enforcement. He ended up deciding to pursue it as a career.
He trains out of Elevation Fight Team and was actually the primary training partner of both Alistair Overeem and Curtis Blaydes at one time. Based on what both Blaydes and Pauga himself have said, despite being "raw" when he showed up, he impressed the guys there to the point where Curtis pretty much always requests him for fight camps and Zac quickly picked up a bunch of stuff from him and Reem through "osmosis" or what have you lol.
Zac went 4-0 as an amateur and 4-0 as a pro prior to TUF. Also, as an aside, I think that the two guys Pauga beat on TUF were some of the toughest guys in the house (not to mention being natural Heavyweights). Nyle Bartling had a combined 11-0 pro & ammy record, had a D1 wrestling background out of Ohio State, and was known for a style that was heavy on takedowns, submission-hunting, and GnP. Jordan Heiderman had a combined 12-1 record with an undefeated run in the LFA; he had a reputation for being a well-rounded finisher with a background in amateur boxing, wrestling, and BJJ.
Pauga comes across as a guy who came late to the sport and is using his natural athleticism and his status as a quick study to pick things up on the go. His style seems to emphasize a lot of footwork and volume on the feet. He's typically very accurate and defensively sound. He doesn't push for finishes, but if they materialize (generally through attrition) he'll pursue them. He
can grapple but it's often not his first choice, often preferring to use his wrestling defensively or to give his opponent another look. His cardio checks out. He
seemed like the better, more polished product than Mo going into the finale, so him being the favorite was justified at the time. Did Usman make the necessary mid-fight adjustments, did Pauga just have a temporary defensive lapse and simply get clipped by the bigger man, or a little of both? Hard to say.
When it comes to Pauga fighting Wright, I believe Zac is the rightful favorite. Wright lost any hope of me ever picking him when I watched him go out there and drop his typical gameplan in favor of inexplicably trying to wrestle Barriault:
a strong grappler who was likely still concussed from Chidi KO'ing him just a few weeks earlier. Wright has the worst fight IQ I've ever seen inside the cage, bar none, while Zac seems fairly mature and composed for a relatively inexperienced dude with some commendable cage awareness. He's also taken something like six months off since Mo got him out of there and is now fighting at his optimal weight class. I
think Zac has the right mental and physical skills to weather the first round storm before dragging Jordan into deep waters and finishing him in the second or third round. But there's always a certain level of pucker factor involved in picking against the Beverly Hills Ninja, especially when the dude you're picking just got KO'd in his last outing.
