Professionally known as Zac Pauga, Zachary Taala Pauga is a Samoan-American professional mixed martial artist and a father of two. He is fighting out of Lakewood, Colorado, United States and his fight name is The Reaper.

Born in Denver, Colorado to Tolouli Pauga and Kara Pauga, Zac has one older brother named Justin Pauga and one sister named Tea-Kenji Pauga-Lanciaux. Tolouli is from Samoa.

Currently, Zac is signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and he trains at Elevation Fight Team in Aurora, Colorado. He is 6’2″ tall and he competes in the heavyweight division.

Before becoming a professional MMA fighter, Zac competed in wrestling, rugby and football and worked as a police officer in Colorado. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. In 2006, he graduated from Green Mountain High School in Lakewood.
2. From 2006 to 2010, he attended Colorado State University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology and played football. In 2010, he spent a week at Bacon Elementary School in Fort Collins, Colorado where he helped struggling students with reading.
3. In 2011, he signed with the National Football League team Houston Texans as a free agent but was not drafted to play in the NFL.
4. From 2014 to 2016, he played for the Glendale Raptors rugby club. In 2016, he played for the Denver Stampede rugby team while working full time as a police officer for the Wheat Ridge Police Department in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
5. As an amateur MMA fighter, he defeated Charles Bullard on January 26, 2019, Ryan Schulman on September 14, 2019, Christian Porter on November 8, 2019, Hammer Morton on December 14, 2019 and Roman Marquez on February 29, 2020.
6. On July 31, 2020, he made his professional MMA debut at the Legacy Fighting Alliance event “LFA 87” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA where he defeated Zac Cavender via unanimous decision.
7. On January 29, 2021, he defeated Ashby Thomas via technical knockout at “LFA 98” in Park City, Kansas, USA.
8. On April 23, 2021, he defeated Logan Nail via unanimous decision at “LFA 105” in Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA.
9. On August 1, 2021, he made his Cage Warriors Fighting Champion debut at “CW 126” in San Diego, California, USA where he defeated Terrance Jean-Jacques via unanimous decision.
10. On October 17, 2021, he defeated Markus Perez via unanimous decision at “CW 130” in San Diego.
11. At “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 30 in Enterprise, Nevada, he defeated Nyle Bartling in the quarterfinals on February 17, 2022 and Jordan Heiderman in the semifinals on March 10, 2022. Both are exhibition matches.
12. On August 6, 2022, he made his UFC debut at “UFC on ESPN 40” in Enterprise where he was knocked out by Mohammed Usman.
13. He was 34 years old when he defeated Jordan Wright via unanimous decision at “UFC Fight Night 219” in Enterprise on February 18, 2023, which improved his professional MMA record to 6 wins and 1 loss.