Bruno Miranda Draws Inspiration from Raush Manfio Prior to PFL Challenger Series Bout

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.