Michael
Chandler recently weighed in on his canceled fight with
Conor
McGregor.
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After months of anticipation, Chandler was finally scheduled to
headline UFC 303
against McGregor on June 29. However, Dana White confirmed last
week that the fight was off, as McGregor pulled out due to an
injury. Chandler addressed the situation for the first time since
that announcement in a video on social media.
“Well it’s Monday morning, on the trail right now, getting my mind
right, thinking about what has transpired over the last couple of
days…Got the rug pulled out from underneath me at the last possible
moment,” Chandler said. “I had just got done with my last sparring
session Thursday morning. I’d been hearing rumblings since Monday
obviously but really got the call about an hour after my last
sparring session was completed… The happiest and healthiest and
hardest to kill, most dangerous man I have ever been in my entire
life in that moment, to 30 minutes later getting a phone call that
all of that was for naught. Or was it?”
Chandler has been waiting for the McGregor fight for a year and a
half since they appeared as rival coaches on “The Ultimate Fighter”
Season 31. It became apparent that their UFC 303 booking was in
jeopardy when a Dublin press conference was canceled on 12 hours’
notice earlier this month. White confirmed those fears with his
announcement that the fight was off last week.
While there was initially some speculation regarding a postponed
date for the fight, White recently said that he
isn’t willing to discuss McGregor’s return until “Notorious” is
fit and in fighting shape. Currently standing at a crossroads in
his career, Chandler plans to keep on working instead of worrying
about outcomes.
“So what do I do now? A little bit of uncertainty in my life,”
Chandler said. “When’s this fight gonna happen? What date would it
be rebooked for? What venue? How bad is the injury? Reports have
come out that it’s not that bad, just needs a little bit of a
delay. But still, no guarantees. But I thrive when there are no
guarantees. Just a walk-on kid from High Ridge, Missouri, who has
continued to trod in a forward trajectory no matter what the
opposition, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the
situation. It’s not up to me to will outcomes into existence. It is
up to me to do the work. We let the work talk. We do the work. And
we do the work until we become undeniable.”
While McGregor hasn’t fought in three years, Chandler has also been
on the sidelines since a submission loss to Dustin
Poirier at UFC 281 in November 2022. Now that the fight is off,
Chandler doesn’t want anyone’s sympathy.
“Don’t you dare disrespect me by feeling sorry for me,” he said.
“Don’t you dare disrespect me by having any kind of sympathy. Be
emboldened by my situation. Be emboldened by my steadfastness and
my immovability of hitching my dreams to a shooting star and
continuing to move forward. If you’ve been on this journey with me
for a long time you know how I operate. You know where my mindset
is, where my mental is. And it is nowhere near down in the dumps. I
am emboldened by this test, and this test ain’t done yet. And this
test shall turn into part of my testimony.”