Michael Chandler seemed to have landed the most high-profile fight of his long career when he agreed to face Conor McGregor in the Octagon after firstly serving as opposing coaches on The Ultimate Fighter reality show, but months later the bout has still not been finalized and ‘The Notorious’ hasn’t re-enrolled in the USADA drug-testing program yet.
That latter point is a huge deal as fighters are required to be tested by USADA for six months before being allowed to fight in the UFC after returning to the mandatory testing program, and that means McGregor has now missed the window to sign up in time to compete before the UFC’s final event of this year.
“Alright guys, you guys have all seen the news: Conor’s not in USADA,” Chandler said in a Twitter video. “One hundred and seventy-nine days left until December 16, which is supposed to be the last pay-per-view of the year. And comically, USADA shows up at my door today to add insult to injury.
“Where you at, boy?”
“No joke… WHERE THE FOOK IS THAT GUY?” Chandler wrote alongside the video.
The answer is that McGregor is likely lying low at the moment due to a disastrous appearance at the NBA finals in Miami last week that first saw him hit the headlines for putting a Miami Heat mascot in hospital after a playful boxing stunt gone wrong.
More troubling though was what one woman claimed happened behind the scenes of that event after she went to the police alleging that McGregor sexually assaulted her in a bathroom at the kaseya Center.
Video footage has since emerged showing McGregor leading the woman by the hand into the bathroom as security guards then blocked the entrance to it, but it’s not clear what happened next and McGregor’s lawyer has claimed that all the allegations against his client are false.
Meanwhile, McGregor’s starring role opposite Chandler on TUF Season 31 on ESPN is proving to be a flop in the ratings, with the show premiering with just 294,000 viewers and having gone down since.
With McGregor also still not having signed back up to USADA despite claiming several weeks ago that he was just about to it has left many questioning whether we’ll ever see McGregor in the Octagon again, and meanwhile a separate issue now is how long the 37-year-old Chandler will be willing to wait for this fight to happen before he gives up on it.
