Prates spent 16 years getting here, as he told UFC.com before the Della Maddalena fight, before earning his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2023. He debuted in February 2024 and went on a tear. Trevin Giles, Charles Radtke, Li Jingliang and Neil Magny all fell inside two rounds. He trains with the Fighting Nerds, the São Paulo camp that has become one of the most talked-about gyms in the sport. He also makes no secret of his lifestyle: he told Full Violence he smokes 10 to 15 cigarettes on a normal day and only cuts nine pounds to reach 170.
Prates is a long, patient southpaw who hunts the one-shot finish. At 6-foot-1 he plays range and timing, lands 4.41 significant strikes per minute and connects on roughly 55% of his attempts. His left hand finished Edwards and Magny. The spinning elbow that put Geoff Neal away at UFC 319 was the kind of shot that prints performance bonuses — he’s up to seven of them. The grappling questions are still there. Ian Machado Garry exposed him on the mat over five rounds in April 2025, though Prates points to his BJJ black belt and shrugs it off.
The career-defining stretch came in 2025 and 2026. After the Machado Garry loss, Prates flattened Neal with the spinning elbow at UFC 319, then knocked out former champion Leon Edwards with a straight left at UFC 322 in November. Six months later he flew to Western Australia and stopped Della Maddalena in the third round of UFC Fight Night Perth, hurting the former champion with calf kicks before closing the show. Two former titleholders in six months, both finished. That’s the line he leans on in every interview now.
Prates sits among the top contenders at 170 and is openly campaigning for the next shot. Islam Makhachev is expected to defend against Machado Garry at UFC 330 on August 15, per MMA Mania, and Prates has said he’ll wait. “I should be next,” he told reporters at the Perth post-fight press conference. Whether the UFC agrees, or whether Michael Morales jumps the line first, is the only thing standing between him and the belt.