Michael Chandler: ‘Most Pain I’ve Ever Been In’ After Loss To Charles Oliveira

Michael Chandler has admitted that his body took a beating during his unanimous decision loss to Charles Oliveira at UFC 309 on Saturday night.

“Body the most pain I’ve ever been in my entire life, the most injuries I’ve ever had in a fight for sure. Peed blood, inflammation all over, my whole body is swollen,” Chandler said on the ‘Bussin’ With The Boys’ podcast.

Most worryingly for Chandler, he says he injured his knee during the fight, and he’s apprehensive about what the results of the MRI will show.

“I will not say anything until I get an MRI, but yeah, I think something happened to the new in that first exchange where he had the leg and I did a full 360 – he did like a little kneebar thing. Cos I walked back to my stool and I looked down at my leg and it was not working right. It wasn’t stepping, it wasn’t catching. It was unstable, it was weird.”

Chandler said the injury hampered his ability to fight, with going backward being no problem, but moving forward being a big issue.

“If you really go back and watch the…4th and 5th [rounds], whenever I was pursuing him my left leg was almost just like flopping rather than stalking and moving forward.”

So Chandler will now have to wait and see what the extent of the damage is, but for now he still has plans for 2025, suggesting he’d be interested in a potential showdown with either Conor McGregor or ‘BMF’ title fight against Max Holloway at International Fight Week in the summer of next year.

Check out Chandler’s full interview below.

Ross Cole
Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.