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Will Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler ever actually fight in a UFC cage?
At this point, it’s anybody’s guess. But McGregor seems to believe it will and believes the fight will take place at middleweight.
Chandler, who has spent his entire UFC career at lightweight, isn’t backing down. In fact, he not only believes that the fight will happen, but he believes that he’ll finish McGregor early in the fight and end the Irishman’s MMA career.
“I can confirm, that’s exactly what I’ve heard as well,” Chandler said on his YouTube page when discussing a middleweight fight in June. “Obviously, him announcing it makes it a little bit more true. You’ve got to remember, the UFC has not announced this yet. Also, if I take you back to Feb. of 2023, while he, the UFC, myself, we were all in talks about The Ultimate Fighter, Conor came out and put a long tweet out about The Ultimate Fighter and how he was going to do The Ultimate Fighter. So Conor, in typical Conor fashion — Conor being Conor — wanted to break the news himself about The Ultimate Fighter, then it was confirmed and the UFC put it out there.
“It looks like that scenario has happened again. June 29, International Fight Week, me versus Conor.”
Why middleweight? Chandler says it’s all about McGregor controlling the narrative.
“When it comes to 185, you’ve got to remember, there’s two reasons why it’s at 185,” he explained. “No. 1, Conor wants to continue the narrative that he’s bigger than he actually is. You guys think he’s bigger because of lights, camera angles, and a great photographer. … That’s No. 1.
“No. 2, you’ve got to remember, UFC 274, I kicked Tony Ferguson’s head clean off, I got on the microphone, and I said I want to up the stakes, I want to fight you at your biggest, your baddest, and your best. So naturally, Conor can’t say the fights at 155 [pounds], because he wants you guys to think he’s too big to make 155 — which isn’t true — and he also can’t say it’s at 170, because that means he’s not in control, since I originally called for the fight at 170. So naturally he says 185.”
What does the weight change mean for Chandler? Not much if you ask him.
“It’s going to be a big card, it’s going to be fun, and I finish Conor within the first two rounds and after that, probably end his career,” he said. “There’s just so much more than what people think about on the surface level. I want battlegrounds of epic proportions, I want to stand in the cage with that man, I want to break that man’s will, I want to break his jaw, I want to separate him from consciousness, completely flatline him inside the octagon, and then we say farewell to the sport’s biggest star. Then we can go about our merry way.”
You certainly can’t knock the guy’s confidence.