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Michael Chandler has absolute confidence his fight with Conor McGregor is still happening.
Earlier this year, the UFC announced Chandler and McGregor would coach opposite each other on The Ultimate Fighter 31. Ten, per show tradition, they would square off in McGregor’s first fight since shattering his leg against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264.
While the two fulfilled their roles on TUF, and even set up their eventual showdown with a well-publicized altercation, the fight still hasn’t been booked, leading some to question if it ever will happen. Chandler, though, still has faith.
“The status is, unequivocally, the fight is still happening,” Chandler said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “The fight is not booked for a date, the fight is not booked for a venue, but the fight is booked between Chandler and Conor. There’s no way Conor comes back and doesn’t fight me. If Conor doesn’t fight me, he’s probably just not coming back, and that’s out of my control. He’s coming back, he’s fighting me.
“At this point, by deductive reasoning, by process of elimination, there’s a main event in December, there’s a main event in November, we’re not going to not be a main event, so that pushes it into 2024.
“I’m ready to fight in January, February, March, April, May, whatever. We’ll see. Obviously, it makes a lot of sense that there’s a very historic card coming up with the UFC. I haven’t been told that’s when it’s going to be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s when it is. And if it is, I’ve got more and more time to prepare. I’ve never had this much time to prepare for one certain guy, one certain opponent. Me and my team, we’re going to put together a game plan and knock this dude out in the first round or two.”
Chandler later added he doesn’t mind the delay in announcing the fight because of how active he’s been since joining the UFC in 2020. Having most recently competed at UFC 281 in November, it’s already the longest time he has gone without fighting in his professional career. He may well have more time ahead as McGregor still hasn’t re-entered the USADA testing pool, meaning “Notorious” won’t be eligible to compete until March at the earliest – barring a special exemption from the UFC.
Chandler said he has no inside knowledge into what’s delaying McGregor, but he doesn’t seem too upset by it, saying he’s prepared to wait for several more months before considering other options.
“Obviously there’s been a lot of speculation,” Chandler said. “The guy is coming off a crazy injury, is he not ready to fight yet? I also completely understand if Conor isn’t in any hurry to come back. He’s got more money than he can probably spend, so that urgency for him to fight may not be there, necessarily, so it’s probably got to be right. He needs to feel 100 percent right. … He’s training, looking like he’s training, looking like he’s doing what everybody accuses him of — partying too much — but he’s also out there training as well. It would all be speculation at this point, but the guy is coming off a gruesome injury. This is not an easy injury, and shame on anybody who says he should be back by now. The dude snapped his leg in half. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to that fight. I believe the fight is happening. I might be absolutely crushed if it doesn’t, but I have no indication whatsoever that I’m waiting in vain.
“I’ve definitely thought about that a lot, and people have asked me that,” Chandler continued, talking about when he would give up on facing McGregor. “Obviously, with the six-month USADA deadline, you start looking at different dates, you start looking at different events. You can do the math at what point in time he would need to enter the USADA testing pool. … Best I can say, UFC 300 could possibly be what everyone is probably looking at. So the six-month mark from there would make a lot of sense, but I haven’t set a date. I’m just a foot soldier ready for that phone call, and when that call comes in, I go to work.”
While Chandler seems content to wait, much of the MMA world is getting a little impatient. Other lightweight contenders have ridiculed the former Bellator lightweight champion for holding onto the fight and McGregor for his cavalier attitude toward returning. But Chandler doesn’t mind, in large part because of what potentially awaits him at the end of the road.
“When it comes to this kind of stuff, the dude’s earned the place,” he said. “You’re a hater and a naysayer if you don’t believe he has. He and I have some history. He put his hands on me. He and I have a ton of respect for each other, even after that. A ton of respect for each other. That’s why you didn’t see a lot of that stuff back and forth on The Ultimate Fighter. I have a ton of respect for what he’s built, and he and I are excited to compete against each other. I’m the next fight. He has said it. I have said it. The UFC has said it…
“This is the fight that’s going to happen, and I’m really excited about it. It’s the biggest fight of my life times five, the biggest fight of anybody out there who wants to talk, like [Renato Moicano], this is the biggest fight times a million that he’ll ever have. So we’re going to keep focusing on the task at hand and we’ll knock him out in the first round.”
And so, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, Chandler believes that in 2024, he and McGregor will finally settle their business on the biggest stage of them all: UFC 300 next spring.
“My heart of hearts says the biggest fight we’ve seen in a very long time has to go down on the biggest card that the UFC is going to put together since UFC 200, since UFC 100,” Chandler said. “My heart of hearts, my gut says we might be waiting until UFC 300. Good thing I’ve got a lot of things to keep my busy, and I get an opportunity to train for Conor for a very long time.”
While not yet official, UFC 300 is expected to take place next April, likely in Las Vegas.
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