New York City — Michael Chandler spent the better part of two years waiting for a fight with Conor McGregor, which has yet to come to fruition.
This Saturday at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden, Chandler (23-8), a former Bellator MMA lightweight champion, will step back in the cage, but it won’t be against MMA’s biggest star.
“I’m the happiest, the healthiest, and the hardest to kill that I’ve ever been, and I’m excited to go compete,” Chandler told media outlets including Cageside Press on Wednesday, ahead of his rematch with Charles Oliveira, the UFC 309 co-main event.
McGregor would have been the money fight, of course. The pair were expected to headline UFC 303, until Conor dropped out due to a broken toe. By that point, The Ultimate Fighter 31, where the pair served as coaches, had long since wrapped. Still, the fight was a welcome one, right up until it didn’t happen.
The lesson learned? “Patience is a virtue. It is one of the most important attributes that we can have as human beings, yet sometimes when you flex extreme patience, you flex that extreme patience muscle, people question it,” said Chandler on Wednesday, addressing those outside of the sport who had plenty to say about the wisdom of “Iron” Mike waiting for the fight.
“It made a lot of sense, I understand what people were saying, I get it. But ultimately whether people think that I was being hindered by and governed by outside circumstances or whether they thought I was not in control, some of that is true and some of that is not true. At any given time, I could have called Hunter [Campbell], called Dana [White], said ‘I’m off this train, forget Conor, give me the next guy.'”
“So I chose to wait,” added Chandler. “Maybe that’s just me taking extreme accountability, which I think is a superpower.”
There’s also the silver lining factor. With no fight booked, Chandler found himself working on business ventures and spending time with his family in a way that he had not been able to do so previously. “A little bit of time off is not what I wanted, but what I needed,” he admitted.
Chandler believes that a win over Charles Oliveira will take him to a title shot, and that things have come together how they were meant to with his former foe being the man standing in his way. Islam Makhachev holds gold; to get there, Chandler must get his revenge against Oliveira.
“You could not have scripted it any better. People love a comeback story, and this one is going to be special,” Chandler promised on Wednesday, while at the same time distancing himself from the fighter who lost to Oliveira with the then-vacant lightweight title on the line in 2021.
“I don’t know who Charles is fighting, I don’t know that guy. He makes ill-advised decisions at times, so we’ll see what happens,” stated Chandler, while predicting that at UFC 309, “it will be vintage Michael Chandler.”
Chandler, for one, was not shocked to see Oliveira’s name come up, nor that he accepted the rematch. “Not surprised at all. Charles would fight anybody. Charles will fight anybody. I realize the man I’m up against, I realize the dangers that he poses. He is a decorated veteran, decorated former champion, and a decorated former foe of mine who beat me. I think in these types of situations, there are a lot of talks that are happening behind the scenes. It just depends what your motivation is.”
Chandler believes that for Oliveira, that conversation, that motivation, boiled down to wanting to fight for the title, and the UFC suggesting that would be possible with a fight against Chandler himself. “When his name got thrown out there after the Conor stuff started falling through and it looked like he wasn’t coming back any time soon, Charles Oliveira is the perfect opponent for me, it’s the perfect time, and you couldn’t have scripted it any better. So I’m not surprised whatsoever, because Charles is a stud.”
A lightweight title fight against Makhachev is the expected result with a win at UFC 309, but should that not come to fruition, Michael Chandler does have options. One name is does not expect to face again, however, is Dustin Poirier.
“Not really. Dustin’s got a win over me, he’s never going to take the chance with one of his last couple of fights to put that on the line and lose to me, and have that stain on him the rest of his life,” Chandler suggested. “I know that for sure, and I’m not really worried about it. I will be ranked ahead of him Saturday night at midnight when I beat Charles Oliveira. And we’ve got other options.”
Those, continued Chandler, include “Max [Holloway] for the BMF belt, Islam for the title obviously, you’ve still got the Conor fight, you’ve still got TUF 31, finishing that which needs to be finished. We had a contract signed. There’s a lot of options for me, and I don’t think he’s [Poirier] necessarily one of them at all. But maybe someday we’ll squash the beef. Probably not. I think we will at some point. Right now we’re just two dudes in the same division looks towards the same thing.”
Watch the full UFC 309 media day appearance by Michael Chandler above.
