Carlos Prates has gone public with doubts about Islam Makhachev. The surging welterweight contender posted a lengthy statement on Instagram questioning whether Makhachev is willing and ready to compete at UFC 336, MiddleEasy reported. Prates aimed it squarely at the champion’s status heading into the pay-per-view, and the timing is pointed, because it comes right after Makhachev made it sound like his calendar is getting short.
On Oct. 30, Makhachev said his next outing will be near the end of the line. Championship Rounds circulated his comments on X:
“My next fight is one of the last in my career. They say Prates is too dangerous for me and Morales is too good for me. So I want to face the best of them and prove to the world once again who is the best in world.”
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That framing puts Prates and Michael Morales on the same shortlist, with Makhachev casting himself as the man picking from it. Prates apparently doesn’t love being a name on a menu.
The retirement math doesn’t add up
Makhachev has given two very different timelines. At the UFC 330 press conference he said he wouldn’t walk away until he’d stacked 20 straight wins, a clip Dovy Simu reposted on X the same day as the “one of the last” comments. “17 is not gonna be enough, I will be sure nobody will break my record. It’s going to be 20, MINIMUM,” Makhachev said then.
You can make those two statements fit together if you squint hard enough and count on him fighting a few more times. You can also see why a contender reading both would start wondering how committed the champion is to the next booking.
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Makhachev has defenders. Flyweight Joshua Van backed him over what Van called his recent backlash, saying “The guy has done everything he needs in the sport.” Van also pointed out how fast the conversation turned, noting that people were calling Makhachev the GOAT after his win over Ian Garry and changed their tune soon after.
Morales has a scale problem
The other name in Makhachev’s sentence is booked against Prates. According to a post from Morales himself, shared by Championship Rounds, Morales currently weighs 220 pounds and has three months to get down to 170 for that fight. Fifty pounds in roughly 12 weeks. That is a lot of weight to lose, even for a big welterweight who walks around heavy.
So the picture at 170 looks something like this: Prates has a dance partner in Morales, Makhachev is publicly weighing both of them as his next opponent, and the champion’s own statements about how long he’ll stick around point in different directions.
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Quick take
Prates is right to push, and he’s smart to do it now. When a champion starts talking in terms of “one of the last,” every contender’s window shrinks, and the guy who makes the most noise usually gets the call. My bigger concern is Morales. I’ve watched too many good fighters show up flat in Round 2 because the scale won the fight before the referee started it, and 50 pounds in three months is the kind of cut that ends with someone missing weight. If that happens, Prates is the cleanest option sitting there for Makhachev, and this Instagram post will look like he was getting ahead of the line.
