Modestas Bukauskas explains why he was “frustrated” with his performance against Zac Pauga at UFC Vegas 75

Modestas Bukauskas wasn’t happy with the way he fought last Saturday.

Bukauskas was taking on Zac Pauga at UFC Vegas 75 and entering the fight, he was confident he would be able to finish him. He thought his striking would be too much for Pauga but that wasn’t the case as the scrap went the distance.

“The dude has a hard head. He managed to evade certain shots and was able to take some good shots from my right hand,” Bukauskas said to BJPENN.com. “He’s really tough and strong and super durable. I still think there were moments when I could have finished him, there are a lot of errors I made on my part. But, he fought a great fight so credit to him, the main thing is we got the job done.”

Once the final bell rang, Bukauskas thought he did enough to get the win but admits he knew it was a close fight. Ultimately, all three judges scored the fight for him – including one 30-27 which he doesn’t agree with.

“I thought I did enough to get the win,” Modestas Bukauskas said. “I felt like I hurt him in the first round, the second round was a toss-up and I thought I won the third. When they read the 30-27 scorecards, I was like ‘who the hell did they give that one to?’ In all honestly, I thought it was 29-28 for me, but one of them thought I won all three rounds. To me, the fairer decision is 29-28 for me. At the end of the fight, I was hoping the MMA gods were with me as I have been on the wrong end of these close decisions.”

Even though Modestas Bukauskas got his hand raised and extended his win streak to four, the 29-year-old admits he wasn’t happy with his performance at UFC Vegas 75. Bukauskas thought he could have fought much better and plans to prove that next time out.

“I am a bit frustrated with myself and my performance. I know there are things I did in training which caused me to have a boxing-heavy approach which is something I will work on,” Bukauskas said. “It wasn’t my best performance, I could have done a lot of things much better. There are already things in my head that I want to work on in my next fight.”

With Modestas Bukauskas wanting to improve on his game, he says he likely won’t return for a bit, unless he can get on the Paris card in September.

“I would like to fight in Europe next but it’s whenever the UFC offers me. I know there are a lot of light heavyweights matched right now, but at least one more before the end of the year against whoever,” Bukauskas concluded.