Carlos Prates: ‘I should be next’ for winner of Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry

Carlos Prates dismantled former UFC welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena in the main event of UFC Perth this Saturday and feels he’s done enough to punch a ticket to the 170-pound belt.

Now 7-1 in the UFC with seven knockouts and seven post-fight bonuses won, Prates said Maddalena was tougher than he expected, but stilled pulled off the third-round knockout he expected.

“I should be next,” Prates said at the post-fight press conference. “Nobody beats two former champs on that really good way. They never do by knockout and then I come there and make it look easy. I respect to them, they are tough. But against Leon, against ‘JDM,’ I make it look like easy. And I’m the next. Nobody did it. Of course you have Morales, but Morales didn’t fight a former champ. I beat you former champs. So I will be the next.”

Prates told MMA Fighting in April he had a “plan” in the works with Ian Machado Garry, saying the Irishman — the only man to beat him in the UFC — would defeat Islam Makhachev to win the UFC title and then rematch in Brazil.

The UFC has yet to announce Makhachev’s next opponent, but Prates believes it makes sense and plans on waiting for whoever wins that bout. He’s also down to challenging the Russian, and said his victory over Maddalena also shows he’s ready to face a wrestler like Makhachev.

“I was thinking about the bonus,” he said of not rushing for a finish when Maddalena dropped due to calf kicks. “I feel like his leg was hurt and he was bleeding. I was talking with him like, ‘You become a wrestler now? You want to try takedown?’ And he also was talking with me.

“I was not worried about takedown. A lot of people are gonna say, ‘Oh, how can Carlos can fight Islam because in the first round he got tripped by JDM?’ If you see like when he comes to take me down I just opened my arm like, ‘Ah, you now you become a wrestler and take me down? I’m not scared about takedowns. I’m not scared. I’m BJJ black belt, you know? After hurting him, I feel like he’s out of the fight he don’t gonna knock me out, he don’t gonna do any damage to me, now I need to get the bonus. ‘OK, now let’s bring the fight to the way it will give me the bonus.’”