Preview: UFC Kansas City ‘Garry vs. Prates’

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday will set up shop in Kansas City for the first time in a little over two years with UFC on ESPN 66 at the T-Mobile Center. The promotion did well to throw together a strong main event on just a few weeks’ notice, as Ian Garry and Carlos Prates step in for an interesting-to-analyze welterweight showdown with high stakes for both men. Meanwhile, the co-headliner sees former light heavyweight title challenger Anthony Smith call it a career against Chinese slugger Mingyang Zhang, who gets a massive opportunity to make waves at 205 pounds. Beyond that, everything has been matched well in terms of blending importance and potential action. Featherweight prospect David Onama finds himself in position for a possible breakthrough against Giga Chikadze, while the rest of the bill features welterweight and middleweight veterans seeking to build some momentum.

Now to the UFC on ESPN 66 “Garry vs. Prates” preview:

Welterweights

Ian Garry (15-1, 8-1 UFC) vs. Carlos Prates (21-6, 4-0 UFC)

ODDS: Garry (-135), Prates (+114)

Prates was one of the UFC’s top breakout fighters in 2024—part of a breakout year for his Fighting Nerds team as a whole—and marched up the ranks with four straight knockouts. “The Nightmare” impressed in his 2023 showing on Dana White’s Contender Series but still had plenty of questions to answer ahead of his UFC debut. His wrestling and grappling game were still an open question, and Prates’ tendency to pick his spots figured to be an issue when he couldn’t find a finish. Instead, Prates has made it to the UFC’s Top 15 without needing to win any rounds. While it still takes him a while to heat up, he has proven unstoppable once he gets going. It’s also a pleasure watching Prates work as he tries to feel things out, as he simply applies a lot of basic tools very well and with a rare level of intelligence. As an example, when faced with the threat of Charles Radtke’s left hook, Prates simply grabbed his left wrist before closing the show with a brutal knee to the body. After the win over Radtke, Prates closed out the year by taking apart Jingliang Li and Neil Magny. Now comes the toughest test yet in Ireland’s Garry.

If 2024 was Prates’ breakout year, for Garry it was the year where he started to plateau after passing every previous test with flying colors. Signed by the UFC at 23 years old, Garry was the rare young prospect who had nothing left to prove on the regional scene. With impressive size and solid athleticism, Garry proved adept enough as a striker and a grappler that he separated himself even on a solid European scene, so hopes were high that “The Future” could hit the ground running with the step up in competition to a major promotion. Indeed, Garry’s rise was fairly clean, even if it came with a few scares. His height and upright striking style meant that he got clipped a few times while fighting with aggression, but he generally did an impressive job of scouting his opponents and sticking to a game plan, enough so that he called his shot ahead of time with a head kick knockout of Daniel Rodriguez in 2023. Garry started flirting with the welterweight Top 10 in 2024, and with that, came a clear change in mindset that’s hopefully part of some growing pains rather than any sort of permanent adjustment, as the Irishman has started to get too conservative for his own good. Geoff Neal and Michael Page were understandably dangerous as knockout threats, but Garry’s game plan focused on defense and risk mitigation to the point that he almost lost each decision due to a lack of effective offense. The Page fight had a particularly disheartening focus on control-heavy wrestling. Garry earned a bit of credit by stepping in on late notice to take on Shavkat Rakhmonov at the end of the year. It did result in Garry’s first career loss and a flat performance from both men, even if the Irishman did a better job of locking horns with Rakhmonov in close quarters than many would have expected. Similarly, it’s good to see Garry step in here to take a fight few others would have wanted, as the experience should serve him well in the long term. Garry probably has to take the less exciting path once again to score the victory, and it might be more necessary in this assignment than most. Even if Garry wants to do a much better job than usual of turning defense into offense, it will be difficult to outmaneuver Prates if this fight mostly takes place on the feet. While Prates has shown some solid takedown defense in his UFC career to date, it’s hard to entirely tell how he will fare with Garry’s sheer stickiness if the Irishman decides to sell out for that strategy. Garry should find some success mucking this up, so this might not hit the pure barnburner status that Prates fights have the potential to fall into, but the call is that the Brazilian should be able to hit some hard shots throughout and take this fight over by the championship rounds. The pick is Prates via decision.

Jump To »
Garry vs. Prates
Zhang vs. Smith
Onama vs. Chikadze
Pereira vs. Magomedov
Brown vs. Dalby
Aliskerov vs. Muniz
The Prelims