Did Islam Makhachev duck Carlos Prates? Making sense of the welterweight champ's decision

UFC 336 was meant to be headlined by Islam Makhachev defending his welterweight title against Carlos Prates. If Makhachev managed to beat him, which he was favored to, he would have then been expected to defend the welterweight belt against Michael Morales. Those plans, though, fell through in spectacular fashion after Makhachev refused to fight at UFC 336, despite his previous claim at the UFC 330 post-fight presser that he wanted to fight again soon.

He's not dealing with any serious injuries, and the man he beat at UFC 330, Ian Machado Garry, already has a fight booked despite being the one who suffered a knockdown in their fight. So, what's going on?

The factors behind Islam Makhachev's decision

Part of the outrage aimed at Islam Makhachev is due to his inactivity. At most, he'll fight twice a year, but even those fights are spaced out by many months, with his first bout always taking place very early in the year, and his second one taking place in the last three months of the year. When that isn't the case, he simply fights once per year and goes on a long break. This has always been a source of frustration for fans, and it's only worsened since Makhachev's ascension to championship status at lightweight, then welterweight. Fans want an active champion, and he is anything but. So, when he pulls out of a targeted fight with Carlos Prates, that frustration only deepens.

However, the other half of the outrage is that Makhachev himself had said he wanted to fight in early 2027 before Ramadan, having made the claim at the UFC 330 post-fight press conference (10:31):

"Bro, we have to fight before Ramadan. 100%. Of course. January and end of the year, we have to fight, because I'm not 20-something. I'm 34 years old and I have to fight as soon as possible because I'm not cutting much weight, I don't have any big injuries. Just have to maybe double check my nose. That's it."

Not only did Makhachev directly express his desire to fight in January before Ramadan, lining the timeline up with UFC 336, which is set for Jan. 30, but UFC president Dana White later revealed that they had reached a verbal agreement with Makhachev for him to defend his welterweight title against Prates. Yet, he still withdrew from the bout, leaving many in the MMA community scratching their heads. Why claim he wanted to fight in January, reach a verbal agreement with the UFC to headline UFC 336, only to renege on the agreement?

Afterward, Makhachev took to social media to address fan questions about the situation. When asked to clarify whether he was still fighting in January, he claimed that there were too many contenders and brought up a title eliminator between Prates and Morales hours before the UFC announced it as an interim welterweight title fight on the live UFC 333 broadcast.

"Carlos Morales January. Too much contenders."

However, the notion that it's a contender's job to thin out the herd is bizarre. If there are too many contenders in a division, it's the champion's job to beat them, especially when Prates was already a deserving contender, with a three-fight knockout streak, including two finishes over ex-champions like Jack Della Maddalena and Leon Edwards. He then doubled down in a more recent statement, while also claiming that his next fight will be one of his last, which contradicts a past claim, also made at the UFC 330 post-fight presser, that he would defend the welterweight belt for several more years.

"My next fight is one of the last in my career. They say Prates is too dangerous for me and Morales is too good for me. So I want to face the best of them and prove to the world once again who is the best in the world."

If that's the case, what really caused Makhachev's tune to change? Before this, he was committed to fighting for much longer, wanted to fight in January before Ramadan, and had verbally agreed to the Prates fight. Clearly, something is afoot.

Islam Makhachev's potential plan

The likelihood is that Islam Makhachev realized the challenge ahead. He wasn't necessarily ducking Carlos Prates by turning down the fight. Instead, he was avoiding the most dangerous run of contenders he would have had to face as the defending champion. Prates is a much better striker than him and far more powerful. Fighters who had never been knocked out before got their chins cracked by him. So, while Prates' defensive wrestling pales in comparison to Makhachev's offensive wrestling, and he'll almost certainly be taken down in a possible fight, the element of danger will always be there because Prates carries his power into the later rounds.

To make matters worse for Makhachev, he hasn't been able to finish anyone at welterweight, and found it very difficult to control a taller, lankier fighter in Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330. He isn't a big welterweight, has struggled to pack on mass, and Prates is one of the larger 170-pounders on the roster. Prates also revealed that he has picked up on some of Garry's defensive wrestling tricks from UFC 330. Sure, Makhachev would have likely beaten Prates at UFC 336, but then he would have to follow that fight by defending the belt against another dangerous contender in Michael Morales, who is not only a powerful striker, but has a wrestling background to go along with a serious size, weight, and overall physicality advantage.

Morales is not as easy to take down as he once was, and that was apparent at UFC 322, when he easily neutralized Sean Brady's wrestling, before TKO'ing him in round one. It's painfully obvious by the champion's own words that he did not want to fight Prates and Morales back-to-back. There's a nonexistent chance that anyone will ever be able to outskill Makhachev, who is the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. Only reigning UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski can truly contend with him in a skill-for-skill clash. So, if a fighter can't outskill him, what about chinning him? 

Power is power, and unless a fight ends in the opening seconds, a fighter is going to get hit, no matter how dominant their performance is, and just one strike from Prates and Morales can end his reign. Makhachev is well aware of this. So, if he can halve the risk by only fighting one of them, he'll take it and that's what he's doing. But it's not just about strategically managing his welterweight title reign. There are now rumors about Makhachev possibly moving up to middleweight to try and win a third belt, which would be an unprecedented achievement in the UFC. He even addressed the rumor in a recent interview with Red Corner MMA.

"It would be hard. Yes, we've talked about it with the team, but we still need to think it over because I would have to gain a lot of muscle for that."

Makhachev's decision not to fight Prates at UFC 336, while claiming that he's at the end of his career despite previous claims that he'd be around for a few more years, is because his plans have changed. In his Red Corner MMA interview, he also claimed that very little motivates him in MMA anymore. Becoming the first three-division champion in UFC history would be his greatest-ever accomplishment, so perhaps he wants to eliminate two top contenders at welterweight by pitting them against each other, beat the winner to leave the division without a clear next title challenger until more fights take place, then move up to fight for the middleweight belt, after which he'll retire. It's a clever way to navigate the end of his career, which is what he's actually doing.