Dana White says Islam Makhachev gave a verbal yes to fighting Carlos Prates and then took it back. Yahoo Sports and Telecom Asia Sport both carried the UFC CEO’s account Thursday. The reports frame it as an initial agreement followed by a withdrawal, which scrambled the matchmaking. Neither headline says why the champion changed his mind.
The timing matters, because Prates had already lit the fuse. On Monday, Championship Rounds shared comments from Prates (via @laertevianamma) in which he went after Makhachev for not fighting him in January. He opened with “He chickened out” and kept going from there.
Prates said he’d return and beat Makhachev “twice as badly as I was going to before,” and he claimed the promotion wasn’t happy with how things went down. “The UFC was pissed. They didn’t like it,” he said. His central argument was about the job description. If a fighter isn’t seriously injured, Prates said, he should take the fight his contract calls for. He also offered Makhachev an exit: “If you don’t want to fight, vacate your belt and that’s it.”
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The part that stung most was the bit about public uncertainty. Prates said that if Makhachev wasn’t sure about January, he shouldn’t have been talking about it, and he suggested an invented injury would have looked better than what actually happened. “Just stay quiet, fake an injury or something,” he said.
He wasn’t done on Wednesday night. Prates reposted a Makhachev quote from the UFC Performance Institute and added three lying-face emojis, which is about as subtle as a spinning back elbow.
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White has been talkative this week. On Jim Rome’s show he said the UFC is working on Ilia Topuria’s return and expects it in early 2027. He also admitted he “might’ve threw some tough guys at” Josh Hokit because he didn’t like some of Hokit’s comments. With White’s version now on record, Prates’ gripe goes from one angry contender’s story to the boss confirming that a yes became a no.
No new date for Makhachev has been reported, and the January fight Prates wanted is off the table by his own telling.
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My take: a verbal agreement in this sport is worth about as much as a 12-leg parlay ticket the morning after. I’ve held plenty of both. Books can’t hang a number on a fight that only exists in a phone call, and nobody should get excited about a Makhachev vs. Prates line until there’s ink on a bout agreement. Still, White going public tells you which side the promotion is leaning on. Prates said the UFC was angry and White just gave him the receipts, so the pressure on Makhachev to name a date is now coming from inside the building.
