Islam Makhachev vacated the lightweight belt to get his shot at greatness Saturday at Madison Square Garden, where he challenges Jack Della Maddalena for the welterweight title in the UFC 322 main event.<\/p>\n
However, 170-pound contender Carlos Prates believes the matchup is closer than some people might see it.<\/p>\n
Makhachev is the odds-on favorite after winning his past 15 fights in the UFC, a run that includes victories over Alexander Volkanovski, Charles Oliveira and Dustin Poirier. On the other side, Della Maddalena has also not lost in nearly decade, compiling an 18-fight streak with eight octagon victories.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Makhachev is good on the feet and he\u2019s good on the ground, and Jack Della Maddalena is a boxer,\u201d Prates told MMA Fighting. \u201cHe might be stronger than Makhachev. I\u2019m anxious to see, but the champion isn\u2019t champion by accident. From what I\u2019ve followed, the fight slightly favors Jack Della Maddalena, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prates competes on the same card, battling former champion Leon Edwards in hopes to insert his name in the conversation for a shot at the gold. He\u2019s down to face whoever holds the belt, but said that having a touted champion as Makhachev across the cage would \u201cdefinitely\u201d mean more in terms of legacy.<\/p>\n
Only one man was able to beat Makhachev in MMA, Brazil\u2019s Adriano Martins, who knocked Makhachev out in his second UFC bout back in 2015. The Russian has won 15 straight since with three knockouts and seven submissions, but Prates knows the ideal game plan to come out victorious.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I watch, I think it\u2019s defend the takedowns and beat him up, right?\u201d Prates said with a laugh. \u201cIf you let him get on top [position], even if you\u2019re good at jiu-jitsu, it\u2019s hard to sweep a guy like that, it\u2019s hard to submit a guy like that. His wrestling is very high level, he has a very good base. I think it\u2019s really defend the takedowns, tire him out, attack the body, the legs, and then knock him out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islam Makhachev vacated the lightweight belt to get his shot at greatness Saturday at Madison Square Garden, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-283779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}