After eight years living in Thailand in order to improve his muay
Thai technique, Brazilian lightweight Bruno
Miranda will finally have the chance to make it to the big
stage.
The former Road FC fighter will take part in the fifth week of the
PFL Challenger Series on Friday at Universal Studios, Florida, when
he faces American talent Carson
Frei.
“As we could see in the first (few) weeks, they are choosing the
ones who bring great shows and that’s my goal,” Miranda told
Sherdog.com. “If you look at all my fights, I’m always looking for
a knockout or submission and it will be no different on
Friday.”
The man known as “Robusto” believes Frei will attempt to take him
down due to his eight years experience training at Tiger Muay
Thai.
“Due to my background, he will probably try to grapple,” said
Miranda, a purple belt under Gustavo “Ximu” Machado. “I don’t want
to underestimate him, but I´ve also been training for the last six
months at Nova Uniao against some of the most technical and deadly
lightweight grapplers in the world, so I´m ready for whatever he
brings.”
Miranda claims that the million dollar prize is not his main focus,
instead pointing to 2021 PFL champion Raush
Manfio as a big inspiration to him.
“His story is really unbelievable. He entered as an alternate and
finished as champion with the $1 million dollar prize,” Miranda
said. “Of course, I dream of the possibility of winning $1 million
dollars, but that’s step by step. My goal now is 100% to win with a
great show. The most important (thing) is that the PFL already gave
me a contract of three fights. Even if they don’t hire me now, I
still have two fights left and of course I can (earn) a spot in
next year’s season.”
Thanks to his time at Tiger Muay Thai, Miranda was able to witness
the growth of UFC champions such as Alexander
Volkanovski, Israel
Adesanya and Petr Yan
firsthand.
“I had the experience of seeing the beginning of
Volkanovski, Yan and Adesanya,” Miranda said. “Actually Volkanovski
was already 10-0, Petr Yan was
fighting amateur events but already had a pretty high level (of
skill). It was easy to see in sparring that those guys would go
far.”
But it was the Nigerian-born Kiwi who impressed him the most.
“We fought at the same kickboxing event in China. The first time I
saw Adesanya fight, I thought he was like Anderson
Silva from kickboxing,” Miranda said. “Later on
he went to Tiger and we became close friends. What impressed
me the most about him is that seven years ago he already had clear
plans to get the UFC title and he did everything as planned.”
Miranda believes Alex
Pereira, who is 2-0 during his UFC tenure but owns a pair of
kickboxing victories over Adesanya, should be regarded as an
underdog against the middleweight champion in an MMA bout.
‘“Poatan’ is also a kickboxing genius, but Adesanya is ahead
of him in the MMA world,” Miranda said.