Bruno Souza: Lyoto Machida is Like My MMA Dad

Bruno Souza’s Ultimate Fighting Championship debut didn’t go according to plan, but the Brazilian is ready to get back on track, and this time he will have an MMA legend in his corner.

In his first UFC foray, former Legacy Fighting Alliance flyweight champion Souza (10-2, 0-1 UFC) dropped a decision to Melsik Baghdasaryan at UFC 268 after replacing T.J. Laramie on short notice. In his next assignment, “The Tiger” faces Luis Saldana at UFC on ESPN 33. Souza spoke to Sherdog about having former UFC 205-pound kingpin and MMA father figure Lyoto Machida, whom he has known since Souza was six years old, to help corner him on Saturday as he hopes to secure his first UFC victory.

“Lyoto is amazing,” he said. “It’s not only [there] for me. What he does to me, he does to anyone like he’s such a nice guy. If you stop him on the street and you ask him questions, he’s gonna answer. I have the pleasure to have him as my guide like the guy I will call. For the first time, he will be in my corner. Yeah, that’s the deal, that’s breaking news. He will be in my corner for the first time ever because he was always like training, he was always like fighting or had something [else] to do. He’s gonna fight only in May. He’s really important to me. He’s like my dad in the MMA world. I started everything because of him. I started everything because when I was six years old, he used to come to my house. My daddy used to cook for him, and we used to watch tapes of his fights.”

Souza also discussed the lesson he learned from his loss to Baghdasaryan, talked about his debut at Madison Square Garden, and more.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(01:00) The origin of his nickname
(02:26) Walking out to the Octagon for the first time
(03:38) His takeaways from the Baghdasaryan fight
(04:35) Debuting at Madison Square Garden
(06:05) His camp for Saldana
(07:12) His relationship with junk food
(09:13) Training with Machida
(11:38) The biggest lesson he learned from Machida
(13:08) His walkout song
(14:12) His pick for Chris Daukaus vs. Curtis Blaydes
(14:34) Outro

stu Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and he now covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.