Preview: UFC Fight Night 231 Prelims

Light Heavyweights

Vitor Petrino (9-0) vs. Modestas Bukauskas (15-5)

ODDS: Petrino (-218), Bukauskas (+180)

The UFC's light heavyweight division needs some new blood, and Petrino has looked capable of stepping up to the plate thus far. After his win to earn a contract on the Contender Series last year, Petrino looked like a fairly simple prospect to analyze with a game built around hunting for the knockout and figuring out the rest later. But he's proven a surprisingly capable wrestler in his two UFC fights to date, outworking Anton Turkalj and scoring a third-round submission of Marcin Prachnio thus far this year. There are still some questions as to how Petrino handles resistance, but it's also a promising sign that he hasn't found much pushback yet - but some may come in the form of Bukauskas. A Lithuanian-born Englishman, Bukauskas has done well to even make it to a second act in the UFC, as his first stint ended with a loss due to a brutal knee injury. Bukauskas first came into the UFC with a solid bit of hype in 2020, owing to a highly successful regional career, but his future prospects were a bit hard to parse; a lot of those wins were messier than expected on paper, with Bukauskas leveraging his size and durability to find finishes through sheer attrition. That turned into a losing proposition against more potent opposition, and it's hard to say that Bukauskas is a much different fighter even since his comeback - but he's improved enough on the margins to find wins this time around, outworking Tyson Pedro and Zac Pauga since his return to the promotion in February. But this fight against Petrino looks to be where things get tough, as he's a much more aggressive and offensively potent fighter than Bukauskas' recent opposition; and even if the hope is that Bukauskas can outlast Petrino to find a win, Bukauskas himself has shown a questionable gas tank in his hard-fought efforts, which makes it hard to bank on a fully successful comeback. Even if this turns into a three-round grind, this figures to be the Brazilian's fight to lose; the pick is Petrino via second-round submission.

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