Introduction
Friday, August 27th, Argentine light heavyweight prospect Emiliano Sordi will be in action for PFL, where he will be looking to clinch a season finale fight against veteran Antonio Carlos Junior. He will be looking for another win, as Sordi looks to score another win en route to an eventual million-dollar payday. He represents Alliance MMA, a top camp in MMA. Let’s take a closer look at this prospect as this week’s “Prospect Spotlight.”
Strengths
Kickboxing: Sordi’s biggest asset in his arsenal is his kickboxing, and you will see that in almost every fight Sordi partakes in. He has good, quick hands that he throws with impunity and is accurate in landing. He also has a good plethora of kicks, though he mostly uses leg kicks in my experience scouting him. The leg kicks are often used as a distraction or a set up to throw his hands. Sordi has big knockout power as well. If he lands his left or right hand, he can either sleep you or put you on the route to a knockout loss. He’s not only a good striker on the feet, but his ground-and-pound is also a good weapon for him. He doesn’t try to take the fight to the ground often, but when he does, he uses his hands as sledgehammers.
First-Round Pressure: Sordi is a quick starter, as he takes the center of the cage and tries to set the pace. He gets his striking going in a hurry and head hunts from the get go. In his last six fights, four of them are first-round finishes. In addition to choking out Bozigit Ataev, he scored three knockouts in that time over Ataev, Sigi Pesaleli and Jordan Johnson. Sordi does not like the judges to get involved, and that is very admirable…
Needs Improvement
First-Round Vulnerability: …in the same way that Sordi gets to work quickly and tries to score the early finish, he also has his own vulnerabilities in the first round. It’s the kill or be killed mentality. Since 2016, Sordi has fallen three times, all of which were by first round finish courtesy of Bozigit Ataev (TKO), Ryan Spann (SUB) and Gregory Babene (SUB). His style lends well to fans, as he doesn’t wait around til later in the fight, but because his fights get off to such a furious start, he’s just as vulnerable to the finish as he is capable of finishing his opponent.
Outlook
Top-20 UFC Fighter: Sordi’s improvements from his Contender Series appearance in 2018 til now has been very impressive. On the Contender Series, he was choked out in under 30 seconds by the aforementioned Spann. Since then, Sordi has improved leaps and bounds training in the United States at places like American Kickboxing Academy and Alliance MMA. His 2021 PFL season has had its ups and downs. He looked very good against Chris Camozzi, though Camozzi made it a dog fight and almost stole the fight toward the end. He then drew against Dan Spohn, which allowed him to make the playoffs with the one point he earned, but showed some chinks in the armor. Sordi is in need of an impressive playoff run, as 2021 has been a bit of a disappointing run thus far for the Argentine.
MMA Intel 