“The Baltic Gladiator” Modestas Bukauskas faced off against “The Hulk” Ion Cutelaba at UFC 315, the pair making the trip to Montreal for a preliminary card light heavyweight affair.
Coming off an upset win over prospect Ibo Aslan in February, the always entertaining Cutelaba was on his first two-fight win streak since 2018. As for Bukauskas, he was making the most out of his second UFC stint, sporting a 4-1 record since coming back to the promotion.
ROUND 1: Cutelaba was showing off his kicking game early, consistently touching Bukauskas’ lead leg. The Lithuanian was the first to get a clean connection with his right hand, but Cutelaba answered with an overhand of his own. They were both trying to surprise the other right lead head kicks, but to no avail. This was a more mature version of Cutelaba, who was satisfied with setting up his power shots instead of blindly throwing them. Bukauskas landed a couple good one-twos down the middle as Cutelaba was throwing lead hooks. “The Hulk” was pressuring for most of the round, but I thought Bukauskas’ offense was a bit sharper. After one round, it was 10-9 Bukauskas on my scorecard.
ROUND 2: Cutelaba landed a nice combination to start the round. The old, action-oriented version of Cutelaba was started to come alive as he threw a superman punch followed by a spinning elbow, but he appeared to lose his balance throwing it and went stumbling backwards. After they clinched for a full minute without much action, the referee separated them. Though Bukauskas was landing more often than not when throwing, it was Cutelaba who was winning this round based on activity. In the final minute, they both started to sit down on their punches and exchanged hooks. While neither were badly hurt at any point, Cutelaba’s activity won him the round. I had it tied 19-19 going into the third.
ROUND 3: With only 10 decisions in their combined 53 fights of experience, neither were used to going the distance. So entering the third round, with fatigue maybe have starting to play a factor, they both clinched almost immediately. Once again, the referee separated them after about a minute. Perhaps hearing some urgency from his corner, Bukauskas began to let his hands go a bit more and connected on a couple nice shots. After a failed takedown attempt from Cutelaba, they clinched once more. Bukauskas threw a nice flurry as they momentarily broke away the clinch. In the final ten seconds, they both threw big shots and Bukauskas ended the round with a spinning back kick to the body. Despite the commentary team seemingly thinking Cutelaba was on his way to a 30-27 victory, I was inclined to give this round to the Lithuanian, meaning he won 29-28 on my personal scorecard.
When the scorecards were read and Bukauskas won via split decision, Daniel Cormier called the decision “trash”. And though I agree that duelling 30-27s were strange, I do believe the right man got his hand raised.
Official Result: Modestas Bukauskas def. Ion Cutelaba by split decision (27-30, 30-27, 29-28)
