Carlos Prates has been chasing Islam Makhachev with both hands on the steering wheel, but Sean Brady is not sold on him being the ugliest problem in the welterweight line. Brady thinks Michael Morales is the tougher read, and his reasoning is pretty simple. One guy has known grappling tape. The other still feels like a locked room with bad intentions.
Brady laid out the comparison while discussing the next wave of challengers around Makhachev, Prates and Morales. Here is the source clip from the interview:
Sean Brady explains why he believes Michael Morales has a better chance of beating Islam Makhachev than Carlos Prates:
“I think Prates can knock anybody out, for sure. Out of Prates and Morales, everyone’s gonna say I’m biased because I lost to Morales, but I think Morales will… pic.twitter.com/CVsJ9iXD5m
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) August 26, 2026
Brady did not dismiss Prates as some random dude with heavy hands. That would be silly. Prates is 24-7, dangerous, and has been very loud about wanting the Makhachev smoke. Brady just sees a clearer path for the champion if Prates is the man across the cage.
“I think Prates can knock anybody out, for sure,” Brady told Ariel Helwani. “Out of Prates and Morales, everyone’s gonna say I’m biased because I lost to Morales, but I think Morales will give Islam a harder time. I was asking for the Carlos Prates fight, so I’ve gone back and done the tape study on him, where I’ve seen guys in One FC take him down and beat him on the ground. I think Islam will be able to do the same thing, whereas with Morales, we still don’t know how good he is. We still don’t know how good his ground game is. We don’t know how good his cardio is. We don’t know all these things, and I think that’s gonna play a lot more of a factor.”
Brady did not say Morales should receive the title fight immediately. He argued that the unbeaten contender needs another assignment first.
“I do think he needs one more fight. He beat me last November. It’s going to be a year, definitely, by the time he fights again.”
Asked what matchup he would choose, Brady floated a returning Shavkat Rakhmonov as one option.
“I heard Shavkat’s supposed to come back at the end of the year or early next year. Do him and Shavkat.”
Brady closed the contender discussion by repeating his view: “I just think Morales needs one more, and I feel like everyone else kind of feels the same way.”
Brady Sees More Mystery In Morales Than Prates
That is the uncomfortable part of the Morales conversation. He is 19-0, he already stopped Brady, and the UFC still has not forced him to answer every bad question an elite wrestler can ask. Brady is basically saying the unknowns are the danger. If Morales can stuff takedowns, stay fresh, and keep his striking clean over championship rounds, that is a different kind of headache for Makhachev.
Prates is not exactly getting buried here. He has already made it clear he wants the champion, and his back-and-forth with Morales has turned the welterweight contender picture into a messy little bar fight. Brady’s point is that Makhachev’s wrestling might be a more proven answer to Prates than it is to Morales.
Makhachev, now sitting on top at 29-1, has turned every welterweight conversation into a style argument. Prates brings the scary finishing threat. Morales brings the undefeated shine and unanswered wrestling questions. Brady, who is 19-2 and booked to face Gabriel Bonfim on Nov. 7 in Las Vegas, has shared the cage with Morales and studied Prates closely enough to have a strong read.
The fun part is that nobody in this lane gets an easy night. If Prates gets the call, Makhachev has to respect the power from the first exchange. If Morales gets there, the champion may have to solve a younger undefeated contender without the same amount of grappling evidence on film. Either way, the Makhachev welterweight era is already dragging every contender into the microscope.
