Conor McGregor is liable to insert himself into any fight weekend conversation.
This past weekend at UFC 291 wasn’t any different. After seeing Justin Gaethje’s devastating knockout of Dustin Poirier, McGregor took to X and posted: “Justin, I’ll slap you around. I’m the real BMF, he can fight for pennies if he wants but I want spirits, I call the shots, I’m in it to launch shots, f—k Chandler, you want it call for it.”
Those statements suddenly sparked some talk about a McGregor-Gaethje fight somehow supplanting the proposed McGregor-Michael Chandler fight, even though Gaethje seemingly shut them down. Still, is Chandler worried about the McGregor fight not happening?
Not quite.
“The beautiful thing about mixed martial arts is it’s the what have you done for me lately business and everyone has a short-term memory and we all succumb to a recency bias,” Chandler told ESPN’s Din Thomas and Matt Serra on Tuesday.
“I’m not really that worried about it. I believe the fight is happening. The fight makes too much sense for it not to happen. I’m still the most entertaining guy on the daggone roster. Everyone wants to see the greatest comeback in combat sports history, so I think it’s going to be me and Conor. That’s it.”
That being said, despite Chandler and McGregor filming an entire season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” a date for their own fight hasn’t been announced yet. Compounding the issue are questions swirling around McGregor — everything from USADA testing to his personal life and business dealings, according to Chandler.
“Everyone just wants answers. So if we don’t get answers, what do we do? We start to speculate,” Chandler tacked on.
Yet, he remains confident that MMA fans will get to see him scrap with McGregor ... eventually.
“Yes, it’s going to be McGregor and Chandler,” he said.
“Not sure when that fight is going to be, don’t even know what weight class it’s going to be but either way it’s going to happen and I knock him out in the first two rounds. No ifs, ands or buts about it.”