Michael Chandler gives an update on his upcoming fight against Conor McGregor.
There is a massive fight scheduled to happen between The Ultimate Fighter coaches Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler. McGregor has been absent from the UFC for almost 2 years following breaking his leg in his last fight. The fans around the world are looking forward to his return although they are beginning to become impatient. Filming for The Ultimate Fighter has commenced and the show has begun to air on ESPN, however, the date of their fight is still up in the air.
The premise of The Ultimate Fighter is to have two current UFC athletes coaching a team of fighters looking to join the ranks. The coaches will fight afterward and the UFC has announced that McGregor and Chandler will indeed fight, however, there are some lingering issues that must be resolved before placing a date on this bout.
Michael Chandler is confident that he will fight Conor McGregor this year
Conor McGregor removed himself from the USADA testing pool while he was healing from injury. He must return to this testing pool before he is scheduled to fight in the UFC. He must test clean for six months, he has yet to test, and therefore the date is getting pushed back. Chandler is now speaking out about all the rumors that perhaps this fight may not happen after all. He spoke about this on My Mom‘s Basement podcast with Robbie Fox.
“Historically the guys coaching The Ultimate Fighter have historically never not fought,” he said. “So Conor coming back, I’m the fight, we just don’t know when it’s going to be. And I also know everybody’s eager for the answer, hey, when is the fight going to happen? USADA testing, Conor’s leg, Conor’s partying, all these different things that people are talking about because people are so interested in him as a character outside of the Octagon and also the fighter inside the Octagon. So it begs a ton of questions, a lot of speculation.”
Chandler seems to have some assurance from the UFC brass that this fight will go down as soon as possible.
“Ultimately, I’ve been in contact with the UFC, Hunter Campbell and Dana White, both personally, the fight is happening. We don’t, they don’t even have certain big pay-per-views necessarily announced yet, you know. So if you expect our fight maybe November, December, or whatever it may be to be announced already. I think it’s a tough ask right now. We’re still sitting in June.”
If McGregor hops into the testing pool within the next 48 hours he should be able to fight in either November at Madison Square Garden when he was looking toward, or December in Las Vegas. Both of these cards are usually the biggest of the year for the UFC and having this huge fight on either card would make them even more successful.
