Carlos Prates is done being polite about Islam Makhachev. In comments shared by Championship Rounds on X (via @laertevianamma), Prates accused the UFC welterweight champion of ducking a January fight with him and claimed the promotion was unhappy with how Makhachev handled it.
“He chickened out... I’m going to come back and beat Makhachev twice as badly as I was going to before. Just so he learns his lesson and stops being such a coward,” Prates said.
He went further on the business side. “The UFC was pissed. They didn’t like it. If you don’t have a serious injury and you’re not hurt, then fight man. Your contract is for this. This is your job,” Prates said, before adding, “If you don’t want to fight, vacate your belt and that’s it.”
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Then came the line that’ll get screenshotted for weeks. Prates said Makhachev should have kept quiet if he wasn’t sure about January, and that “It would honestly be less bad if you faked an injury and pretended you were hurt.” The UFC has not publicly confirmed Prates’ claim about officials being upset.
Where things stand
One correction to how this is being framed in some corners: Makhachev is the champion at 170 pounds now. He set the UFC lightweight record with four successful title defenses before moving up, and he has two defenses at welterweight, most recently a win over Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330 that pushed his win streak to 17. He turned 35 in October. The current lightweight champion is Justin Gaethje, who upset Ilia Topuria at UFC White House in June.
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Instead of facing Makhachev, Prates now meets Michael Morales for the interim welterweight title in the UFC 337 co-main event, with Makhachev waiting on the winner. As MMA Fighting noted, Makhachev has been criticized for not fighting sooner, which might have let him face both Prates and Morales next year rather than just one of them.
Not everyone thinks that’s a knock. Michael Bisping said on his YouTube channel that Makhachev has “earned the right to pick and choose his opponents and take a little bit of time,” comparing the approach to the “art of fighting without fighting” scene from Enter the Dragon. Bisping also floated a move to 185 against middleweight champion Sean Strickland if Makhachev wins his next title fight.
The retirement timeline is its own puzzle. Makhachev tweeted “My next fight is one of the last in my career,” but at the UFC 330 press conference he said he wants a streak of “20, MINIMUM” before he stops. The math only works if his next fight is the first of at least three more.
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My take
Prates is entitled to be angry, and the fake-injury line is genuinely funny because it’s petty in such a practical way. But Makhachev letting two contenders thin each other out is smart championship management, and his 17-fight streak buys him that patience. The detail I’d actually worry about sits on the other side of the bracket. Championship Rounds reported (via @michaellmma) that Morales was walking around at 220 pounds with roughly three months to make 170. That’s a 50-pound cut in a quarter of a year, and I’ve watched too many fighters show up to title fights with nothing left in the tank by Round 3. If Morales arrives drained, Prates gets his wish to face Makhachev, and he’ll have to back up every word of this.
