Carlos Prates’ manager says the UFC is “a little upset” with Islam Makhachev after the champion backed out of the UFC 336 plans, and he made it clear he thinks Makhachev talked his way into this one.
Speaking to MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz, the manager said Makhachev had been on the record about Prates being the rightful next man up. “He always said Carlos deserved it and that Morales wasn’t fighting. Anyway, something made him change his mind.”
That one word, something, is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and the manager didn’t fill in the blank.
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This didn’t start Thursday. Dana White already confirmed the bones of the story on Wednesday, telling The Mac Life that Makhachev had verbally signed off on a January fight with Prates before withdrawing. “Yeah, it was verbally agreed,” White said. He followed it with the kind of shrug-and-dig that UFC presidents have perfected over the years: “Who knows what he’s thinking or what he wants to do next. I like when guys fight a lot. I don’t expect you to fight 3 times a year, but twice would be nice.”
White also pointed at the cost of a champion sitting still. “You start to back up the division. There’s lots of guys who would like a shot for the title.”
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Prates himself got there first, and he was a lot less diplomatic. In comments relayed by journalist Laerte Viana on Monday, the challenger accused Makhachev of ducking him. “He chickened out,” Prates said, before promising to “beat Makhachev twice as badly as I was going to before.” He also claimed the promotion was angry about the withdrawal and told the champ that if he doesn’t want to fight, he should give up the belt. His most savage line was a suggestion that Makhachev would have looked better faking an injury than publicly hedging on a January date.
Then on Wednesday night, Prates went full group-chat mode, reposting a Makhachev quote from the UFC Performance Institute with three lying-face emojis. No caption needed.
So here’s where things sit. The UFC 336 plan with Prates is off. White says there was a verbal agreement. Prates’ team says Makhachev repeatedly acknowledged Prates had earned it and that Morales wasn’t in the picture. Neither White nor Prates’ camp has said what Makhachev does next, and as of now no replacement fight for either man has been announced.
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My take: I can’t stand this stuff. A champion telling everybody a guy deserves the shot, letting the promotion pencil in January, and then pulling the plug with no injury on record is how you hand the villain role to the challenger for free. And Prates is taking it with both hands. Makhachev doesn’t owe anybody three fights a year, but when your own boss is publicly saying “verbally agreed” and “back up the division” in the same breath, the pressure is real. If Makhachev wants this to go away, the fix is simple: sign the Prates fight and let the lying emojis age badly.
