Carlos Prates did not just collect another finish at UFC Perth. He forced Daniel Cormier to treat him like a live option in the Islam Makhachev title race. After Prates stopped Jack Della Maddalena in the third round, Cormier said the Brazilian’s performance changed the way he looks at the top of welterweight.
Cormier opened his YouTube reaction by explaining why he focused on Prates instead of doing a broader UFC Perth recap. The former two-division UFC champion said some performances are too loud to bundle with everything else.
“At times when there is a big fight or a big performance, we will react to that performance on the day of the performance,” Cormier said. “Yesterday, Carlos Prates fought against Jack Della Maddalena in Perth. And my initial thought was to react to the event as a whole, but then when I thought more about it, I was like, man, you react as a whole to things at times, but not when a person has a performance like we saw from Prates yesterday.”
“People start to question whether or not, and this is honestly why the fight was more about what he did and what comes next opposed to just what happened inside that octagon yesterday,” Cormier said.
Watch Cormier’s full reaction below:
“Carlos Prates has now put himself on a short list of fighters that could potentially fight the champion Islam,” Cormier said. “That happens when you already got a victory over Leon Edwards, right? Whenever you already have beaten guys like Geoff Neal and so many others on your way towards a fight with a former champion in Jack Della. He’s on a short list. He’s already close.”
Cormier Points To Prates’ Patience, Knees And Title-Level Growth
The background makes DC’s reaction easier to understand. Prates was born in Taubaté, São Paulo, built his game around Muay Thai, fought for years before the UFC, and earned his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2023. Della Maddalena is a Perth-born former UFC welterweight champion, a 2021 Contender Series graduate, and a boxer-heavy fighter who climbed from an 0-2 pro start to the top of the division. This was not a showcase booking. It was a dangerous main event against a former champion in his home city.
“You beat the former champion in the way that he beat Della Maddalena because guys, that was bad,” Cormier said. “That was bad. Honestly, when I was watching this thing from afar, I thought to myself, because I’ve never seen Jack get just beat on like that. But how does Prates win as they were going into the fight? I thought Jack Della Maddalena had a style that would present some real issues for Prates. No issues at all for Carlos.”
The fight clip told the same story in a much shorter way:
Cormier did not frame the win as Prates simply swinging harder. He kept pointing to the patience, shot selection, and knees that stopped Della Maddalena from ever settling into the kind of boxing rhythm that usually makes him a problem.
“His punching power, his knees, his ability to go first, his calm demeanor,” Cormier said. “Carlos Prates is a madman. But in that fight, he was more patient than I’ve seen him fight in a long time, if ever. The way he picked his shots, the way he took his time, the way he just landed all those knees to Della Maddalena, the knees to the body, then the knees to the head.”
The broadcast booth’s reaction also stuck with Cormier. Della Maddalena has beaten names like Ramazan Emeev, Randy Brown, Kevin Holland, Gilbert Burns, and Belal Muhammad, and he has never been known as a guy who folds easily. Against Prates, that toughness only kept him in a brutal fight longer.
“I heard Paul Felder and Michael Bisping say it’s almost hard to watch,” Cormier said. “It’s almost hard to watch. And you’re watching two professional athletes fight. You’re watching a former champion in the octagon fight, a guy that was undefeated forever, has tremendous boxing, and he’s on the receiving end of a commentator or a broadcast team saying it’s hard to watch because he’s so tough and durable.”
“Della Maddalena, I’m talking about, that he was staying in there with a person that was completely overwhelming him and that was honestly superior to him inside the octagon in Prates,” Cormier said.
From there, Cormier moved to the part that matters for matchmaking. Prates had already lost a five-round decision to Ian Machado Garry, and DC believes that night showed a fighter still adjusting to main-event pressure. Perth looked like the opposite.
“That performance told me two things,” Cormier said. “One, Prates is ready to compete for the UFC championship. Two, Prates learned. Prates learned.”
“We look at these fighters, old ones, young ones, and when they hit the main event scene, they have to prove to themself,” Cormier said. “They have to prove to people that they’re absolutely ready to one, not only carry a card, but also compete under the spotlight of a main event. It’s not the same. It’s not the same to be fighting on a card and then walking last or walking second to last knowing that everybody in the building is there to watch you fight.”
“The first time Prates did that against Ian Garry, he froze,” Cormier said. “He froze. He did not fight well. And Ian Garry’s an absolute stud. I don’t care what you might think of him. I don’t care if he annoys you. I don’t care if you don’t like his personality. Ian Garry’s an absolute stud. But in that fight, Carlos just looked like he wasn’t ready.”
“We had him smoking cigarettes all over the internet the week of a fight,” Cormier said. “We had him doing all these things that just didn’t seem like he was ready for that spotlight that the main event carried. Not this time, though. Not this time.”
Cormier said he did not see the same noise around Prates during UFC Perth fight week. There was tension at the weigh-ins, but once the cage door closed, Prates fought with control instead of emotion.
“I don’t know if it’s become normal, right? So people aren’t as taken aback by Prates walking around smoking the weekend of fights, but I didn’t see my social channels just flooded with photos of Carlos standing outside of a hotel smoking cigarettes,” Cormier said. “Maybe it happened. I don’t know. I didn’t see it this time. I saw Carlos Prates and Jack Della Maddalena get into it at the weigh-ins. I saw Prates get worked up. Nothing crazy though.”
“Going to the octagon, they looked like they wanted to fight again when the fight was about to start,” Cormier said. “But then when the fight actually started, I watched him deliver at a level that tells me he’s championship ready. Dude’s championship ready, man. He’s championship ready right now.”
That is where Islam Makhachev enters the conversation. Cormier said Garry may still be the likely name for Makhachev, but Prates has now made it much harder to dismiss his own claim.
“Here’s the issue, though,” Cormier said. “The weight class is so stacked. The weight class is so stacked. I saw Red Corner MMA ask Islam the other day. People are saying you’re starting your training camp. He said, ‘Yeah, it feels like it’s going to be Ian Garry.’ I mean, it feels like it’s going to be Ian Garry.”
“But if it was to be Prates after that, nobody would complain,” Cormier said. “Nobody would complain. And I’m going to tell you why. Because we just saw Islam beat Jack Della Maddalena in the way that he did. We saw him dominate Jack Della Maddalena to win the championship. The way Islam beat Jack was not nearly as impressive as what Carlos Prates did the other day.”
“Now it was impressive,” Cormier said. “He made it look easy, but that yesterday was crazy. That was crazy. It looked like Della Maddalena didn’t belong in there with Prates.”
Cormier, an Olympic freestyle wrestler who won UFC titles at light heavyweight and heavyweight, did not say Prates has to jump every contender immediately. He did say the Brazilian’s size, patience, and form make him a nasty problem if this is the version everyone gets moving forward.
“Now, if that’s how Carlos fights from now on, if that’s who he is today, a guy that really takes his time, he’s patient, can pick people apart like that, and he’s huge for the weight class, he’s a real issue,” Cormier said. “He’s a real issue.”
“I think that yesterday that young man did something so special because of the person he did it to,” Cormier said. “You can go out there and beat people time and time again, but when you’re doing it against someone that has won a UFC championship, that isn’t over the hill. Hey, it’s a difference, right? If we get a Jack Della that’s 38, 39 years old and he’s still fighting and that happens, okay, maybe that’s easier to understand. But this is a guy that’s still in the middle of his prime. Prates is older than him.”
“He went out there and fought the fight of his life in the moment that he needed to,” Cormier said. “I mean, I was insanely impressed with Prates yesterday.”
Michael Morales still has a case. Garry still has a case. Prates may have made the loudest statement, but the UFC still has to sort the order.
“Now, am I ready to put him in there? The circumstances have to be right, but I think he’s ready,” Cormier said. “But I also am not ready to say that Michael Morales doesn’t deserve a shot, that Ian Garry doesn’t deserve a shot. But now, I think Prates is right there next to him. I felt like Prates needed another one going into the Della Maddalena fight. No, I don’t believe that.”
If Garry gets Makhachev first, Cormier likes Prates against Morales. That would be ruthless matchmaking, but nobody near the top of welterweight is getting a soft chair right now.
“The craziest thing about it though, guys, is that because of the weight class being what it is, he might have to fight again,” Cormier said. “And boy, keep your fingers crossed because if he does, you hope that it’s Morales because you would imagine that Ian Garry’s probably going to be the one that get the title fight. You can’t run him and Garry back too soon. But if it’s him and Morales, especially if Ian and Islam are fighting, that’ll be a sick pay-per-view or numbered event.”
Prates may not control the UFC calendar, but he did control the part he could control in Perth. He beat the former champion, took the cleaner reads, and left Cormier talking like a title shot would not be some wild reach anymore.
“Carlos Prates is the real deal,” Cormier said. “I couldn’t have imagined that he would have looked that good.”
