Jean Silva thinks Carlos Prates can knock out Islam Makhachev. MMA Sucka ran that under a headline this week, and the easy move is to file it next to every other teammate-style vote of confidence that floats around before a title fight. I’d hold off on that. The more interesting endorsement of Silva’s view came from the other corner, from the man who will be building the plan to stop Prates.
Javier Mendez, the American Kickboxing Academy founder who has spent years in Makhachev’s corner, was asked by MMA Junkie what the most dangerous thing about Prates is. He didn’t hedge or reach for something generic about power. “The knees in range,” Mendez said. Then he kept going: “He uses his range extremely well.” He called the Brazilian explosive, twice, for emphasis.
Coaches say polite things about challengers all the time. This was something else, a specific weapon at a specific distance, named out loud by the head of the camp. That tells you where AKA thinks the fight gets dangerous for the champion.
Why the knee is the right worry
Here’s my argument. If Prates knocks out Makhachev, it won’t be because he wins a long kickboxing match at a comfortable range. It’ll be because of that knee, thrown at the exact moment Makhachev decides to close the distance.
Think about who Prates believes he’s fighting. He told the champion in a social media video that he is “wrestling’s worst nightmare,” which is a pretty clear read on how he expects Makhachev to come at him. A wrestler has to get in on you eventually. He has to cross the space where a long, explosive striker lives, and he has to lower his head and change levels to do it. That moment is where a knee does its work. Prates doesn’t need to chase Makhachev around the cage. He needs Makhachev to come to him, and the champion’s own path to winning requires exactly that.
Bloody Elbow made the point that Makhachev may not have seen striking like this before. I’d go a step further. The knee that hurts a wrestler is the one thrown on reaction, and reaction speed is what Mendez kept circling back to when he said explosive. You can drill the jab, the overhand, the body kick. Drilling against a knee that arrives the instant you commit to a shot is harder, because the danger comes from your own entry.
The Perth proof
The resume behind Silva’s confidence is short but real. Prates missed out on the chance to challenge Makhachev in the champion’s first defense. Instead he went to Perth in May and knocked out Jack Della Maddalena, doing much of his damage with those knees. That win is what moved him past Michael Morales, who is still undefeated, in the welterweight pecking order. When Makhachev beat Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330 in August, everyone involved pointed to Prates as the next man up.
The Della Maddalena knockout matters to this argument because it wasn’t a lucky shot. It was the signature weapon landing repeatedly against an elite welterweight in a hostile room. Any coach watching that tape would circle the knees first. Mendez did.
It also helps that Mendez has been consistent. Before UFC 330, he already picked Prates as the biggest threat to Makhachev if the champion got past Garry. He’s been on this for months, which makes his latest comments read less like fight promotion and more like a camp that has already started its homework.
Where Silva could still be wrong
I’m no fan of hype trains, and I’ll admit Prates hasn’t yet been tested by the kind of opponent who has spent his whole career taking away exactly what you do best. Mendez knows that, which is why the second half of his answer matters as much as the first. “Prates is a beast. No way in heck we can underestimate him. No way in heck Islam will underestimate anybody,” he said.
That’s the line that should worry Prates. A champion who respects the knee will prepare for the knee. Silva’s claim is that Prates can knock out Makhachev, and on that narrow question I think he’s correct. The weapon exists, the range exists, and the moment where a wrestler must enter is built into the matchup. Whether Prates actually lands it against a camp that has named it in public, months in advance, is a different kind of problem.
I’d still take Silva’s side of the argument over anyone who calls Prates a mere stepping stone. When the champion’s own coach answers the most dangerous weapon question in four words, the challenger has a real shot.
The fight isn’t booked yet. The expectation is early 2027 for Makhachev’s second welterweight title defense, and AKA is already planning for the knee.
