A loss can be the most useful tape in the sport. Ian Machado Garry didn’t take the welterweight title from Islam Makhachev. He went the distance with him, which at 29-1 is its own kind of statement. Charles Oliveira watched that fight from close range, as a training partner of Garry’s, and he has decided it was a set of instructions for somebody else.
That somebody is Carlos Prates. Speaking to Sherdog, Oliveira said plainly: “I think Garry showed Prates the blueprint.” Then he went further than he usually does. “I usually say these matchups will be close, but this time, I believe Prates has a real chance to win.”
I think he’s right about the opening. I’m less sure he’s right about the odds, and the gap between those two things is where the fight will live.
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What Oliveira actually saw
Oliveira’s case comes down to two body parts. “If he lands those kicks to the ribs and calves, just like Garry did, he could catch the champion off guard,” he told Sherdog. That is a specific observation, the sort you hear from someone who has been in the room while a teammate drills a game plan for weeks. He’s talking about where Garry’s shins landed and how often, which is a long way from heart or momentum or some vague feeling that the champion is due.
The calf kick matters against a grappler in a particular way. A wrestler who wants to change levels and drive through a takedown needs his legs under him, and every kick that thuds into the lower leg asks him to pay a little more for each entry. The body kick does similar slow work on the gas tank. Garry, by Oliveira’s account, found a way to do both, and he lasted the full fight to prove it was sustainable.
Prates brings more danger to that same plan. Oliveira described him as a sniper with knockout power and a black belt in jiu-jitsu. The numbers back up the power. Prates is 24-7 as a professional, and according to The Mac Life, he has finished all seven of his UFC wins. Seven for seven on finishes inside the Octagon carries a different weight than a hot streak of decisions. Garry’s kicks made Makhachev uncomfortable. Prates’ kicks, if they land in the same places, come attached to a man who ends fights.
The two conditions nobody should skip past
Here’s where I’d slow down. Oliveira’s best quote is also his most hedged one. “If Islam doesn’t secure a finish in the first or second round and Prates maintains the composure he’s shown in his recent fights, he has everything he needs to win.”
Read that sentence twice and count the ifs. The plan works if Prates survives 10 minutes against Makhachev, and if he stays calm while doing it. Those aren’t small conditions. They’re the whole fight. Oliveira is essentially conceding that the early rounds belong to the champion and that Prates’ path opens only once the clock has done some of the work. That is an honest read, and I respect him more for giving it than I would if he’d simply promised a knockout.
It also tells you what Garry’s performance was and wasn’t. The Irishman survived and made it competitive enough that a former lightweight champion now calls it a blueprint. He did not win. Makhachev, who The Mac Life notes has defended the 170-pound belt once since moving up from lightweight, kept his title. A blueprint drawn from a decision loss is a map to the door. Someone still has to walk through it.
Why the source matters
It’s fair to note who’s talking. Oliveira trains alongside Garry, and Prates is a fellow Brazilian. He also previously shared the cage with Makhachev, which gives his opinion a texture most analysts can’t offer. He knows what it feels like when that pressure arrives. Put those together and you get a man who is both well informed and openly in someone’s corner, which is roughly how most gym wisdom gets passed along anyway.
I don’t read his comments as hype. A hype pitch would skip the part about needing to survive two rounds. Oliveira included it because anyone who has felt Makhachev’s grip knows it’s the first thing that matters.
My take: Prates is the most dangerous version of the Garry plan the division can offer, and the kicking game Oliveira describes is real and repeatable. But the champion’s first two rounds are the toll booth, and nobody has shown they can pass through them and still have the legs to press. Garry got through and had no finishing blow left. Prates has the finishing blow. The open question is whether he gets to Round 3 with it intact.
The Mac Life reports Prates is expected to challenge for the title next year and is among the leading contenders for 2027. No date has been announced. Until one is, Garry’s fight tape is the closest thing Prates has to a scouting report, and his countryman has already circled the ribs and the calves.
