Carlos Prates suffered his first setback in the UFC after a perfect 4-0 run in 2024, losing a decision to Ian Machado Garry in the main event of Saturday’s Kansas City show, but afterwards he vowed to become a better fighter.
The Brazilian welterweight wasn’t part of the post-fight press conference after his 25-minute clash with Garry in Kansas City, and used his Instagram page to issue a short statement in Portuguese.
“Unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the fight and that wasn’t enough,” Prates wrote. “Sorry family, I’ll come back stronger.”
Prates helped the Fighting Nerds team go 19-0 in the UFC with their top four talents Caio Borralho, Jean Silva and Mauricio Ruffy, but the foursome are now 19-1 following his defeat.
“F*ck it, we’re a family and we’ll be champions together, we’ll go through this together,” Silva wrote on social media. “And to those of you already criticizing, f*ck you all. I’m with ‘The Nightmare’ even in other lives.”
Borralho, seen as sort of a “team captain” of the Sao Paulo group, also shared a video on social media in support of his teammate.
“I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the love that you guys come to our team and to everybody, to Carlos and everybody,” Borralho said. “Carlos is good. We take this loss as a man and we know that we always grew up after a hard loss like that. And I think we’re going to go back, we’re going to do what we do best, that is study this game, and we’re going to come back better.
“And I think Carlos is going to come back stronger, way better than he was today, but congrats to Ian, congrats to Chute Boxe, maximum respect for you guys. I’m just gonna pay attention for you guys that show love always for our team and to everybody in our team. We’re changing the game, we’re taking over, they’re taking over, continue. It’s just a setback and we’ll be back soon, yeah? I see you guys soon. Thank you so much, all love.”
