Introduction
Wednesday, April 20th, Brazilian light heavyweight prospect Bruce Souto will be in action for PFL, where he will be looking continue his winning ways against Rob Wilkinson. He will be looking for another win, as Suoto looks to start off the 2022 season in a positive fashion and position himself for the $1 million grand prize. He represents Full House, a smaller-known camp in MMA. Let’s take a closer look at this prospect as this week’s “Prospect Spotlight.”
Strengths
Grappling: Souto has a solid jiu-jitsu ability, which has been seen in the grappling exchanges he has had in the cage. He is technical and very good at advancing positions. He is most efficient when he works his way to back mount, where he does his best work. Three of his wins come by rear-naked choke and his LFA bout with Cristhian Torres saw him nearly finish the bout with a rear-naked choke as well.
Well-Rounded: Souto appears to be a jack-of-all-trades, though he isn’t necessarily a standout in one individual place. He has solid striking, as seen in his destruction of Travis Davis by flying knee and punches. He is solid in the clinch and has decent offensive wrestling. In terms of his jiu-jitsu, he has demonstrated that he has submission ability and technical grappling, as mentioned before. Souto is just a tough fighter, period.
Needs Improvement
Counter-Wrestling: While Souto has good submission grappling, his counter-wrestling is something that could be attended to, especially now that he’s in a PFL field with numerous wrestlers. I can cite his bout with Cristhian Torres in LFA. While Souto did win the fight and was a superior overall grappler, Torres, who is not exactly a noted wrestler, got Souto to the ground a couple of times. If Torres was able to ground the Brazilian, how will he fare in a field that includes wrestlers such as Josh Silveira, Marthin Hamlet and Viktor Pesta?
Past Inconsistencies:
Outlook
Major Promotion Low-to-Mid Carder: Souto is clearly a guy with skills and good enough to fight at the highest level. This season’s PFL run will certainly be a measuring stick for how far he can go right now. He is matched up with a tough field of fighters, so it will not be easy, but as of now, he’s a dark horse out of the 10 light heavyweights PFL contracted for this season. MMA Intel has Souto as a top-30 light heavyweight prospect right now, and he could move up even further based on his PFL run this year. He could be a UFC guy at some point and have a few fights with the company.
MMA Intel 