UFC 319 Preview and Prediction: Carlos Prates – Geoff Neal

Tomorrow night on the main card of UFC 319, we will see a banger of a matchup in the welterweight division. Dangerous strikers will collide as 11th ranked Geoff Neal (16-6) takes on 12th ranked Carlos Prates (21-7).

These two were originally supposed to fight back in April, but Neal pulled out of the fight. With that Prates was moved to the main event of UFC Kansas City where he took on Ian Machado Garry. After a slow start in that one, Prates nearly finished Machado Garry in the fifth round, but Machado Garry managed to survive and win a decision. That decision loss snapped an 11-fight win streak for Prates which included his first four UFC fights.

He’ll look to bounce back against Geoff Neal tomorrow night. It’s been just under a year since the last time we saw Neal and we only saw him for 90 seconds in his last bout. He took on Rafael Dos Anjos and RDA injured his knee early on in the fight. It went down as a TKO win for Neal which snapped his two-fight losing streak. Overall, Neal is 3-4 in his last seven after starting 5-0 in the UFC.

UFC 319 Prediction

I find myself always struggling when Geoff Neal fights because I really don’t know what to expect. Neal gives you flashes of greatness like his brilliant performance against Vicente Luque but then he’ll look rather flat like he did in his decision loss against Ian Machado Garry. He’s incredibly dangerous, but it feels like he struggles with aggression in his fights.

He’s going to need to find that dog in him to win tomorrow night at UFC 319. Neal is the faster of the two but he’s going to need to get inside. Carlos Prates is incredibly dangerous and he fights incredibly well from range. If Neal can’t get inside, he’s going to get picked apart with the straight and long shots coming at him from Prates.

I like Carlos Prates in this matchup. I just feel like he’s going to come out with more to prove coming off that loss and I expect him to really do a lot of damage with straight shots which will make Neal even more hesitant to pull the trigger. Neal has a helluva chin so I think we go the distance at UFC 319, but I think Prates gets his hand raised.

Prediction: Carlos Prates by Decision