A welterweight fight between Geoff Neal and Carlos Prates is being targeted for the upcoming UFC 319 event in Chicago on August 16th.

This match-up was actually originally supposed to happen back in April, but it fell through after Neal withdrew due to undisclosed reasons.

That led to the 31-year-old Prates fighting Ian Machado Garry instead in the main event of UFC On ESPN 66, resulting in a unanimous decision loss.

That defeat ended Prates impressive four-fight winning start to his time in the Octagon, which had seen him knock out all four his opponents in 2024, including Neil Magny, Li Jingliang, Charles Radtke and Trevin Giles.

That now leaves Prates ranked No.13 in the 170lb division as he now gets ready to fight Neal, who is currently No.11 in the rankings.

The 34-year-old Neal’s last fight was a TKO victory over Rafael dos Anjos back in October of last year. Prior to that he’d suffered back-to-back defeats to divisional stand-outs Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ian Machado Garry.

In total Garry’s UFC record currently stands at 8-4 since joining from the early days of the Contender Series back in 2017.

Neal vs. Prates isn’t officially announced yet, but is expected to join a UFC 319 card that will be headlined by a middleweight title fight between Dricus du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev.