Add Michael Chandler to the ever-growing list of skeptics wondering whether or not Conor McGregor is ever going to return to the Octagon. Day by day, McGregor seems to put himself further away from the idea that he really wants to continue his UFC career.
What happened to Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler?
Chandler and McGregor currently appear as coaches opposite one another on The Ultimate Fighter, Season 31. The agreement heading into the coaching gig was that Chandler and McGregor would follow the season by stepping into the Octagon to fight one another.
Initial hopes were for a date sometime in the fall. That got pushed back to a possible November date. As time kept slipping away, the hope was for McGregor vs. Chandler to top the UFC’s big year-end pay-per-view in Las Vegas in December.
Even that appears to have gone to the wayside, as McGregor has yet to re-enter the testing pool for UFC athletes administered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. He is required to be in the testing pool for six months, providing clean results, before he can return to the Octagon.
Couple that with myriad controversies swirling around McGregor – sending the Miami Heat mascot to the hospital and recent rape allegations – and you’ve get a recipe for disaster.
Michael Chandler joins Dana White, et al in doubting Conor McGregor
As the days, weeks, and then months slipped by, pundits began to question McGregor’s commitment. Everyone was left questioning whether he would fight again this year, having sat on the sidelines after breaking his tibia in a loss to Dustin Poirier in 2021.
Even UFC president Dana White publicly admitted the difficulty in luring McGregor back to the Octagon.
“The one thing you guys need to understand is this kid has so much money. It’s like Khabib now. These guys have got sh*tloads of money,” White said following UFC Vegas 75. “And it’s hard to real these guys back in and get them fired up to get in and fight.”
Chandler hadn’t really been vocal about the situation, but recently got the knock on his door for a random USADA administered drug test. The irony of him being tested when his fight with McGregor, and likely the biggest payday of his career, seemed to drift away wasn’t lost on him.
“No joke… WHERE THE FOOK IS THAT GUY?” Chandler wrote in a message accompanying a video of him addressing McGregor not yet taking part in the USADA drug testing protocols.
“You’ve all seen the news. Conor is not in USADA. 179 days left until December 16, which is supposed to be the last (UFC) pay-per-view of the year. And comically, USADA shows up at my door.”
McGregor has remained steadfast in the limelight of TUF, promoting the show, himself, and his brands, but has recently been rather quiet about returning to the USADA testing pool and his fight with Chandler.
Conor McGregor team frames rape allegation as a ‘shakedown’
Chandler’s video questioning McGregor
(Follow Michael Chandler on Twitter)
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