Michael Chandler appeared on CBS’s ‘New Years Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash’ broadcast on Wednesday, where he dropped a big hint that he’ll be fighting Conor McGregor at the eagerly awaited UFC: White House event later this year.

“I will say, it’s gonna be a big year,” Chandler said during an interview with the CBS New Years Eve show’s host Bert Kreisher.

“Number one, like you said, the UFC is now on Paramount+, the entire year…for the multitude of [years]…and also, there’s a rumor going around. We can’t confirm nor deny, but it does sound like I might be handing Conor McGregor a good ol’ passionate, ‘red, white and blue’ butt whooping in the South Lawn of the White House sometime this summer. And that’s the plan, let’s go.”

Of course this is a fight that’s been talked about for a long time now, and indeed almost came to fruition back in 2024 after the two stars had competed as opposing coaches on The Ultimate Fighter reality show a year earlier.

However, their scheduled bout at UFC 303 on June 29th of 2024 fell through just a few weeks beforehand after McGregor withdrew due to a broken toe.

And McGregor still hasn’t made his comeback fight in the year-and-a-half since, meaning that it’s now been well over 5 years since the 37-year-old last fought, suffering a broken leg during a TKO loss to Dustin Poirier in July of 2021.

That being said, McGregor has been adamant that he intends to fight on the UFC: White House card on June 14th this year, and there are signs he could be serious about it as he is back in the UFC’s drug-testing pool and does appear to be in training.

Meanwhile, after spending a couple of years waiting on the fight with the Irish superstar, the 39-year-old Chandler eventually had enough in late 2024 and agreed to a fight with Charles Oliveira instead, but suffered a unanimous decision loss.

Chandler then went on to fight Paddy Pimblett in April of last year, but was TKO’d in the third round, marking his third loss in a row.

Despite that, the McGregor vs. Chandler appears not to have lost it’s appeal with the UFC brass, and so there is still a reasonable chance that it will finally happen in 2026 – though given how erratic ‘The Notorious’ has been over the past few years it’s certainly not a cast-iron guarantee.