Shavkat Rakhmonov has been gone so long that the welterweight division got a whole new champion without him. He hasn’t fought since December 2024, and persistent knee injuries have kept him on the shelf ever since. In that stretch, Islam Makhachev moved up and took the belt. Ian Machado Garry, the guy Rakhmonov beat in his last fight, got the title shot that probably should have been Shavkat’s. Garry then lost a unanimous decision to Makhachev at UFC 330 in August. The Body Lock is openly asking whether Rakhmonov is finally ready to come back after two years.
Nothing is official. But this week Rakhmonov did something he rarely does, which is participate in the circus. He put a TikTok caption out that read, simply, 19-0 vs 19-0. MMA Fighting noted he never typed Michael Morales’ name, and he didn’t have to. Rakhmonov is 19-0. Morales is 19-0. Two days earlier, Morales had called him out by name.
So is he back? My read: he’s closer than he’s been in two years, and he’s picked the right fight to come back for. The UFC should book it before anybody gets a chance to talk them out of it.
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The callout that started it
Morales dropped a video on Sunday working his way down the 170-pound ladder like a guy reading off a hit list. He went at Makhachev first, reminding the champ that Makhachev had once called him “way more dangerous” and then said he needed one more fight. He went at Carlos Prates, pitching it as “Deadpool vs. Spider-Man,” which is a better trailer line than half the stuff the UFC’s own marketing team writes. Then he pivoted.
“The final boss of this division, Shavkat Rakhmonov. You know where to find me.”
And as a parting gift: “F*ck you, Ian Garry.”
Garry fired back on Instagram claiming he’d already said yes, that the UFC had sent a date, and that Morales was “making excuses already.” He also asked, “How long has it been since he’s fought?” That’s a fair shot at Morales, and it lands even harder on Rakhmonov, which is a pretty bold question coming from the guy who lost to Shavkat.
Why this is the fight
Look at where the title picture actually sits. Prates knocked out former champ Jack Della Maddalena in May, and MMA Fighting reported that win lined him up as Makhachev’s next challenger. Garry just lost to Makhachev. That leaves two undefeated contenders with nobody to fight and no obvious path to the belt. Morales himself admitted he’s looking at 2027, saying that if Makhachev prefers Prates, he already has his fight picked out for next year.
I love this matchup for the same reason I love any fight where somebody’s zero has to go. Morales is 7-0 in the UFC and coming off three straight first-round knockouts over Sean Brady, Gilbert Burns and Neil Magny. That’s a former title challenger and a former champion in that run, and none of them saw the second round. He’s 27, he’s from Ecuador, and he weighed in as the backup for Makhachev vs. Garry, so he’s already proven he’ll make weight and stand there waiting while other people get the shot.
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Rakhmonov is the guy everybody in the division has been quietly relieved isn’t around. Morales calling him the final boss is a video game line, but it’s also the most honest assessment of the division you’ll hear from inside it. When the hungriest knockout artist at 170 pounds skips past the guys with recent title fights and points at the man who’s been injured for two years, that tells you how the fighters rank him.
The winner walks out as the clear No. 1 contender while Makhachev and Prates sort out the belt. The loser still has 19 wins and an excuse nobody can argue with. Neither guy has to wait around for a booking that’s already spoken for.
The catch
The obvious problem: these are two of the least active top contenders in the sport. Morales hasn’t fought since beating Brady in November 2025 and is approaching a year off. Rakhmonov is pushing two years with knee trouble that MMA Fighting described as persistent, which is never a word you want next to “knee” for a guy who wrestles like he does. A TikTok caption doesn’t mean a doctor cleared anything, and nobody on Rakhmonov’s side has said publicly that the knees are good.
But I’ll take two inactive undefeated guys fighting each other over either one taking a tune-up against somebody ranked 12th. If the knees hold, the UFC has a 19-0 vs 19-0 fight sitting right in front of it, and both fighters have already said the quiet part out loud. Morales told Makhachev he can find him in 2027. Rakhmonov just told Morales the same thing in four numbers.
