Just days after their UFC 303 headlining fight was scrapped due to an injury it appears that Michael Chandler is planning to sit out and wait for Conor McGregor to get healthy again, despite there being no guarantee that the fight will actually happen.
That’s the word according to Dana White, who clearly empathises with the awkward spot the fighter finds himself in after having already stayed out of action for over a year-and-a-half waiting for the biggest fight of his career.
“I think poor Chandler wants to wait for Conor McGregor,” White said on the Jim Rome Show. “Whatever he wants to do. If he wants to get a fight this summer, we’ll do whatever he wants. He’s one of the greatest athletes I’ve ever worked with.
“He’s a good human being and I like him a lot. Whatever he wants to do, we’ll figure out for him.”
White also admitted that he doesn’t know for sure whether McGregor will fight again or not after his latest setback.
“Conor’s going to be 36 in July. He’s got plenty of money,” White said. “I don’t ever think that guys like that, Jon Jones, who knows, maybe he’ll fight again, maybe he won’t. Conor McGregor, maybe he’ll fight again, maybe he won’t. You never know with some of the guys that get to that level. You never know if you’re ever going to see them again.
“The other thing with getting older … you get injured a lot easier, you get hurt a lot easier. More injuries happen than did when you were younger, and you’re less willing to step in there with an injury than when you were young and hungry and broke.”
Meanwhile, Chandler has given a more in-depth insight into how he’s feeling in the wake of the fight cancelation in a new Instagram video.
“Got the rug pulled out from underneath me at the last possible moment — I just had got done with my last sparring session Thursday morning,” Chandler said. “Had been hearing rumblings since Monday, obviously, but really got the call about an hour after my last sparring session was completed. An hour after a celebration.
“Anyone who has trained for a fight or has trained for something you go through a really hard block, and then in order to peak you get toward the very end, you don’t go hard anymore as to throw yourself into the fire and take the chance of injuries, overtraining, bumps, bruises, cuts and all those different things. I had just gotten done with that.”
“So, what do I do now? A little bit of uncertainty in my life. “When’s this fight going to happen? What date would it be rebooked for? What venue? How bad is the injury? Reports have come out that it’s not that bad, just needs a little bit of a delay. But, still no guarantees. But, I thrive when there are no guarantees.
“Just a walk-on kid from High Ridge, Missouri, who has continued to trod in a forward trajectory no matter what the opposition, no matter what the circumstances, no matter the situation. It’s not up to me to will outcomes into existence. It is up to me to do the work. We let the work talk. We do the work. And we do the work until we become undeniable.
“Don’t you dare disrespect me by feeling sorry for me. Don’t you dare disrespect me by having any kind of sympathy. Be emboldened by my situation. Be emboldened by my steadfastness and my immovability of hitching my dreams to a shooting star and continuing to move forward. If you’ve been on this journey with me for a long time you know how I operate. You know where my mindset is, where my mental is. It is nowhere near down in the dumps. I am emboldened by this test, and this test ain’t done yet.”
