Ranking title shot chances of top UFC welterweight contenders

The UFC’s welterweight division is in the early stages of a new era.

Islam Makhachev became the new 170-pound champion and the latest UFC champ to earn a title in a second weight class when he defeated Jack Della Maddalena this past November.

The dominant former 155-pound champion vacated his lightweight belt and moved up to welterweight last year, earning one of his most dominant wins against Della Maddalena, who had previously won the title when he defeated Belal Muhammad six months earlier.

Della Maddalena will look to get back in the win column at UFC Perth this weekend when he faces Carlos Prates in a Fight Night main event. Della Maddalena wants a second shot at Makhachev and to get back into a title fight, while Prates is seeking his first UFC title shot.

Makhachev is expected to return to action in the summer for his first welterweight title defence, however, the organization has not confirmed at which event he’ll compete or against whom.

While it’s frustrating that there hasn’t been much movement near the top of the division so far this year, the good news is that UFC has several different options it can explore.

Either the matchmakers can choose from a small handful of contenders coming off wins and have one of them challenge Makhachev next. Or, UFC brass also has the option of waiting to see how matchups like Della Maddalena vs. Prates unfold in the meantime.

With that in mind, here’s a quick power ranking and assessment of the top handful of welterweight contenders who could conceivably be granted the next title shot or could get one with a memorable win in their next outing.

BEST ODDS: Ian Machado Garry or Michael Morales

At this moment, Machado Garry should be next in line for Makhachev. The 28-year-old from Ireland is 17-1 in mixed martial arts, and his only loss was a five-round decision to unbeaten Shavkat Rakhmonov in December of 2024. Rakhmonov is the X-factor in the division, but it’s unclear when he’ll be fit to return. The 19-0 pro from Kazakhstan wasn’t 100 per cent when he fought Machado Garry and has been dealing with a significant knee injury that required surgical repair ever since. The 31-year-old is still in the process of rehabbing his knee and was removed from the contender rankings earlier this year, so unfortunately, we're not likely to see him compete in 2026.

Machado Garry won two of the five rounds on all scorecards when he fought Rakhmonov. The matchup was put together on less than a month’s notice, and Machado Garry became the only opponent of Rakhmonov’s to push the fight to the distance. Machado Garry is speedy with a high fight IQ and rebounded from his loss to Rakhmonov with back-to-back victories over Prates and one-time champ Belal Muhammad.

Morales is similar to Machado Garry in that he’s young and would hold a significant height and reach advantage over Makhachev. Ecuador’s Morales is only 26 but has finished Neil Magny, Gilbert Burns and Sean Brady in the first round in his past three fights. His KO of Brady at UFC 322 left an indelible impression on fight fans and the win bumped his pro record to 19-0 just like Rakhmonov’s.

Both Machado Garry and Morales have done enough to where if they got the call to fight for the title next, it’d be warranted. If the UFC goes in a different direction, though, then anything besides an official title eliminator matchup for either wouldn’t make much sense.

EX-CHAMP SEEKING ONE MORE SHOT: Kamaru Usman

The former longtime champion only has one win since 2021, which came in his lone 2025 appearance when he outclassed Joaquin Buckley last June. From a meritocracy standpoint, the soon-to-be 39-year-old Usman has no business fighting for the belt coming off his June win over Joaquin Buckley that snapped a three-fight losing streak dating back more than four years. 

A few things Usman has going for him that the other top contenders don’t: he has an undeniable legacy as a respected and dominant champion and has a solid relationship with the UFC as a probable future Hall of Famer; stylistically speaking he has the best MMA wrestling credentials in the division other than the champ and has even pushed current middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev to the brink in a 2023 three-round majority decision loss; the fact he shares an agent with Makhachev also benefits Usman’s chances of landing what would be his ninth career UFC title fight.

“All three of those guys (Machado Garry, Morales and Usman) present different challenges,” Della Maddalena told Shakiel Mahjouri of UFC on Paramount+ this week when asked to break down the division’s other top contenders. “I think they’re all three pretty deserving (of a title shot), but you’d probably think Ian Garry is probably (most deserving) in terms of current competition and the résumé the last few years. I think he’s a deserving guy to give the shot. But I also could see the argument to giving someone like Usman the shot. Former champion, one of the welterweight greats, maybe one of his last few fights.

“I would like to see it go to Ian just from the résumé he’s put together in the division the last few years.”

POSSIBLY ONE WIN AWAY: Carlos Prates

If Prates can do to Della Maddalena what he did to both Geoff Neal and former champ Leon Edwards last year then it’s entirely possible he could leapfrog the pack.

It would be tough to parse Prates getting a title shot over Machado Garry since Machado Garry emerged victorious via five-round decision when the pair fought one year ago. However, Prates nearly finished that fight in the final minute and we’ve seen recent examples of the UFC awarding title shots to contenders that had lost to fighters ranked above them. Diego Lopes’s two recent shots against featherweight titleholder Alexander Volkanovski are prime examples of this even though there were multiple unbeaten contenders above him.

Brazil’s Prates, 32, has deservedly earned the reputation as being one of the most lethal strikers on the UFC roster. He became the first person to knock out former champ Leon Edwards and if he beats Della Maddalena in a more convincing way than Makhachev did then that could set him apart from the three contenders mentioned in the tiers above.

Della Maddalena said he thinks Prates would beat Morales, Usman, Muhammad and said he’d pick him over Machado Garry in a hypothetical rematch.

“We have a lot of really good guys in the welterweight division,” Prates said Thursday at the UFC Perth pre-fight press conference. “After I have a really good performance (against Della Maddalena) I’m gonna show everybody that I’m the next one. I’m the next for the title. … This fight’s gonna bring me the title shot, bring me close to a UFC belt, so I think it’s the most important fight of my career.”

REST OF THE PACK: Della Maddalena, Muhammad, others

Although he’s officially the No. 1-ranked contender, Della Maddalena is in a tough spot because his loss to Makhachev was so one-sided. JDM will have to first beat Prates, look great doing it, then will likely have to fell another top contender later this year to be considered for another title shot.

His former foe and fellow former titleholder, Belal Muhammad, is in a similar position but further down the depth chart. Muhammad beat Sean Brady, Gilbert Burns and Leon Edwards on his road to becoming champion, but he’s coming off consecutive decision losses to Della Maddalena over five rounds and Machado Garry over three rounds.

Muhammad, 37, is scheduled to headline a June 6 Fight Night card against Gabriel Bonfim. Brazil's Bonfim, 28, is ranked No. 10 and among a few rising contenders in this tier of fighters who’ll need at least two more wins over ranked opponents before being included in the title shot conversation.

Sean Brady and Joaquin Buckley are set to clash on the UFC 328 main card on May 9, and the winner will remain in the top half of the rankings. 

Rounding out the top 15, you’ve got Canada’s Mike Malott, England's Michael “Venom” Page, Serbia's Uros Medic, California's Daniel Rodriguez and former Bellator MMA champ Yaroslav Amosov of Ukraine, who looked great in his debut this past winter.

Outside the rankings, you've got blue-chip prospects like Jacob Smith, who has shown flashes of future championship potential and could get onto the contender map in the near future if he keeps dominating his opponents.

It's an exciting time for a welterweight division that's about to begin ramping up after a relatively subdued start to the year.

Here are the official UFC welterweight contender rankings as of the end of April:

Champion: Islam Makhachev
1. Jack Della Maddalena
2. Ian Machado Garry
3. Michael Morales
4. Belal Muhammad
5. Carlos Prates
6. Sean Brady
7. Kamaru Usman
8. Leon Edwards
9. Joaquin Buckley
10. Gabriel Bonfim
11. Mike Malott
T12. Uros Medic
T12. Michael “Venom” Page
T14. Daniel Rodriguez
T14. Yaroslav Amosov