Coach Christian Nogueira believes Carlos Prates does a quick job Michael Morales.
Prates (24-7) will face Morales (19-0) in the match.
Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight title at
UFC 336 Jan. 30 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
Cristian Nogueira explains Carlos Prates’ UFC 336 training changes and predicts second round finish against Michael Morales
In an interview with Sherdog, Nogueira said the team expected Prates to challenge Islam Makhachov first of all.
“It came as a surprise to us because we thought we were going to fight Makhachov first and then Morales,” Nogueira said. “We already planned a training camp for January 30 to meet Islam, but no problem. The important thing is that this fight is for the belt.”
Prates had begun to prepare for Makhachov’s wrestling style, but a change in opponent calls for a different strategy. “The Nightmare” now works closely with a boxing trainer Arthur Césarknown as Ban Ban.
“The main change is in movement,” Nogueira added. “We had worked a lot on defending takedowns and getting back on our feet so we could hurt him right after. Against Morales, the focus shifts more to the footwork developed by our boxing coach, Ban Ban.”
Vale Top Team manager Nogueira said he has been training Pratest since he was 11 years old and remains his main daily coach. Prates considers him a second father. Nogueira said it doesn’t bother him that fans often associate Prates’ success
Fighting nerds not Vale Top Team.
“A true coach always wants the best for his athlete,” Nogueira said. “Fighting Nerds is a great team and I have great friends there, for example Flavio Alvaro and Sucupira. Our work complements each other. If necessary, I will take my athletes to Sao Paulo and they will bring the Fighting Nerds athletes to Taubate, where the Vale Top Team is based. I learn a lot from them and we all have the same goal: to make Carlos the first Brazilian champion at 170 pounds.
While Nogueira considers Morales “a different animal,” he predicts Prates will finish the undefeated Ecuadorian in the second round.
“Morales tends to expose himself a lot because he goes all-in and that works in Prates’s favor,” Nogueira continued. “We have five rounds to go, but I believe Carlos will finish him somewhere in the middle to the end of the second round. The most important thing is to move and not try to finish the fight with one punch. Prates’ only UFC loss came when he tried to finish the fight with one punch. But he has improved a lot in this area.”
Nogueira also said that Makhatchov would be disappointed if he expects to collect more footage from the Morales fight than Prates.
“If the idea was to take Islam out of this fight so that Prates would have to go five rounds and he could collect more footage to study him, he will be disappointed because this fight will not go to the third round,” Nogueira said. “Our focus right now is 100% on the interim belt, but in five or six months we want to fight Islam for the undisputed title. There’s no doubt he’s one of the greats in the history of the sport.”
