{"id":41298,"date":"2026-10-28T05:34:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Carlos-Prates-coach-says-Michael-Morales-wont-make-it-to-Round-3-203384"},"modified":"2026-10-28T05:34:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:34:43","slug":"carlos-prates-coach-says-michael-morales-wont-make-it-to-round-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/carlos-prates-coach-says-michael-morales-wont-make-it-to-round-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Prates’ coach says Michael Morales won’t make it to Round 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Coach Cristian
\nNogueira<\/a> believes Carlos
\nPrates<\/a> will make quick work of Michael
\nMorales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prates (24-7) is scheduled to face Morales (19-0) for the
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> interim welterweight title at
\nUFC
\n336<\/a> on Jan. 30 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Cristian Nogueira explains Carlos Prates’ UFC 336 training
\nchanges and predicts a second-round finish against Michael
\nMorales<\/h2>\n

In an interview with Sherdog, Nogueira said the team had expected
\nPrates to challenge Islam
\nMakhachev<\/a> first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came as a surprise to us because we thought we would fight
\nMakhachev first and then Morales,\u201d Nogueira said. \u201cWe had already
\nbeen planning the training camp to face Islam on January 30, but no
\nproblem. The important thing is that this fight will be for the
\nbelt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prates had begun preparing for Makhachev\u2019s wrestling-heavy style,
\nbut the change in opponent requires a different strategy. \u201cThe
\nNightmare\u201d is now working closely with boxing coach Arthur
\nCesar<\/a>, known as Ban Ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main change will be in movement,\u201d Nogueira added. \u201cWe had been
\ndoing a lot of work on defending takedowns and getting back to our
\nfeet so we could hurt him immediately afterward. Against Morales,
\nthe focus shifts more toward the footwork developed by Ban Ban, our
\nboxing coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nogueira, the head of Vale Top Team, said he has trained Prates
\nsince he was 11 and remains his primary day-to-day coach. Prates
\nconsiders him a second father. Nogueira said it doesn\u2019t bother him
\nthat fans often associate Prates\u2019 success with
\nFighting Nerds<\/a> rather than Vale Top Team.<\/p>\n

\u201cA real coach always wants what\u2019s best for his athlete,\u201d Nogueira
\nsaid. \u201cFighting Nerds is a great team, and I have great friends
\nthere, like Flavio
\nAlvaro<\/a> and Sucupira. Our work complements each other. When I
\nneed to, I take my athletes to Sao Paulo, and they bring Fighting
\nNerds athletes to Taubate, where Vale Top Team is based. I learn a
\nlot from them and we all share the same goal: to make Carlos the
\nfirst Brazilian champion at 170 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Nogueira considers Morales \u201ca different animal,\u201d he
\npredicts Prates will finish the unbeaten Ecuadorian in the second
\nround.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorales tends to leave himself very exposed because he goes
\nall-in, and that works in Prates\u2019 favor,\u201d Nogueira continued. \u201cWe
\nhave five rounds to work with, but I believe Carlos will finish him
\nsomewhere between the middle and the end of the second round. The
\nmost important thing is movement and not trying to finish the fight
\nwith a single punch. Prates\u2019 only UFC loss came when he tried to
\nfinish the fight with one shot. But he has improved a lot in that
\narea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nogueira also said Makhachev would be disappointed if he hoped to
\ngather more footage of Prates from the Morales fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the idea was to pull Islam out of this fight so Prates would
\nhave to go five rounds and he could gather more footage to study
\nhim, he\u2019ll be disappointed, because this fight won\u2019t make it to the
\nthird round,\u201d Nogueira said. \u201cOur focus is now 100% on the interim
\nbelt, but five or six months later, we want to fight Islam for the
\nundisputed title. There\u2019s no doubt he is one of the greats in the
\nhistory of this sport.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coach Cristian Nogueira believes Carlos Prates will make quick work of Michael Morales. Prates (24-7) is scheduled to face Morales (19-0) for the Ultimate Fighting Championship interim welterweight title at UFC 336 on Jan. 30 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Advertisement Cristian Nogueira explains Carlos Prates’ UFC 336 training changes and predicts a second-round finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}