Carlos Prates has revealed during a recent sit-down with LowKick MMA how he plans to dethrone reigning UFC welterweight champion and P4P king Islam Makhachev.
The Brazilian knockout artist was training and working on his wrestling, learning some judo, and strengthening his takedown defense, hoping to challenge Makhachev at UFC 336. However, now the plans have changed drastically.
Prates will now meet the undefeated Michael Morales in the co-main event of the aforementioned numbered event for the interim 170-pound title, and the winner of this bout by law will face Makhachev in a title unification bout later in 2027, all of this because the Russian phenom said he won’t be ready to compete in January.
The 33-year-old, meanwhile, is already looking beyond his UFC 336 bout, confident that he can knock out Morales and capture the interim title with ease. With that in mind, the Brazilian is now setting his sights on dethroning Islam Makhachev and becoming the undisputed 170-pound UFC champion.
Carlos Prates on How He Will Stop Islam Makhachev
In a recent exclusive sitdown with LowKick MMA, with the help of Squawka, “The Nightmare” was asked: “How do you dethrone Islam Makhachev?” Prates said:
“I think it’s not different from what I normally do. Just working on the takedown defence, how to get up in the right way, keep striking. No secret. What’s the deciding factor against Islam? I think my knockout power and the way I like to hurt my opponents also.”
Prates has won all of his UFC fights so far by knockout, and at UFC 336, he plans to finish the Morales fight the same way, as he also told LowKick MMA, after which he will send Makhachev to the shadow realm, as mentioned above.
The Team Fighting Nerds member also said that once he becomes champion, he would be willing to run it back with Ian Machado Garry, the man who ended Prates’ undefeated UFC record in 2025.
