Ian Machado Garry is returning to the UFC cage sooner than he might have imagined.
As part of a rake of fight announcements released on Tuesday, it was confirmed by the UFC that Ian Machado Garry will fight the surging welterweight contender Carlos Prates in the UFC Kansas City main event — a bout which will serve as the replacement to the recently cancelled original headliner between light heavyweights Jamahal Hill and Khalil Rountree.
Garry returns to the cage for the first time since the Dublin man suffered his first career loss, a decision defeat at the hands of former training partner Shavkat Rakhmonov; a bout which he also accepted on short notice to challenge the unbeaten Kazakh.
In Prates, Garry faces a stern challenge. The 31-year-old Brazilian is a perfect 4-0 in the UFC since graduating to the roster following an audition on Dana White’s Contender Series in late 2023.
Remarkably, Prates has finished 16 of his 21 career victories via KO or TKO including each of his past ten trips to the cage — with not a single one of those opponents making it out of the second round.
He was most recently seen in the cage scoring a first-round knockout win over Neil Magny this past November.
Elsewhere on the Kansas City card, Anthony Smith will fight for the final time in his veteran career against Zhang Mingyang, while Giga Chikadze takes on David Onama in a featherweight duel.
