The UFC president has hinted at a potential welterweight clash between Michael Morales and Shavkat Rakhmonov as the promotion plans major events for 2027.<\/p>\n
The welterweight division remains one of the most active in the UFC. The division\u2019s champion, Islam Makhachev, is targeting his second title defense against the No. 1-ranked contender, Carlos Prates.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Michael Morales, ranked No. 3, has called for a title eliminator against Shavkat Rakhmonov to keep the division moving. Dana White has now dropped further hints about the potential matchup.<\/p>\n
Dana White Gives Green Signal to Michael Morales vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Ecuadorian star sent a clear message to the division, calling out Islam Makhachev<\/a> for choosing an \u201ceasier opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n Morales also expressed his willingness to fight Shavkat Rakhmonov, who has returned to training after recovering from knee injuries. Rakhmonov responded with a \u201c19-0 vs. 19-0\u201d hint, pointing to their same undefeated records.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When asked whether the back-and-forth between the two undefeated fighters could lead to an actual fight, Dana White said, \u201cCould be. We actually have a lot of cool stuff going on right now. We got a lot of good announcements coming. We’re going to have a good January\/February.”<\/p>\n Ian Garry Accuses Morales of Avoiding a Fight<\/p>\n As the welterweight division continues to move forward, Irishman Ian Garry is also looking to work his way back into title contention after losing to Islam Makhachev in August.<\/p>\n In a social media post, Garry mocked Morales for being inactive<\/a> and for avoiding a fight against him, despite the UFC<\/a> reportedly having scheduled a date for the matchup.<\/p>\n Morales last fought in November 2025 but remains on an eight-fight winning streak. The Ecuadorian believes he has done enough to earn a title shot.<\/p>\n As a result, Morales dismissed Garry as a potential opponent in his social media post. With both Morales and Shavkat seemingly agreeing to the matchup, the only thing left may be for the UFC to finalize the paperwork.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UFC president has hinted at a potential welterweight clash between Michael Morales and Shavkat Rakhmonov as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,45596,23591,128914,638,132592,82,640,269485],"class_list":["post-933286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-ian-machado-garry","tag-islam-makhachev","tag-michael-morales","tag-mma","tag-shavkat-rakhmonov","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-330-makhachev-vs-machado-garry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933286","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=933286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}