Michael Chandler has taken a lot of flak for spending years of his fight career waiting for a Conor McGregor match-up to pan out. But it wasn’t until his wife called him out on it that he finally shifted gears and pushed for a different UFC fight.
In a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Chandler explained how his wife Brie convinced him he was wasting his time and hurting his brand by betting everything on a McGregor fight materializing. “Iron” Mike spent two years on the sideline hoping his red
panty night would come, until finally Brie convinced him the panties weren’t coming.
“I’m chasing this thing that seems like a dead end path, and she has always been my constant my rock where we have these conversations,” Chandler explained. “I’ve got a whiteboard over here in my office, and we’ll sit and go, ‘Here’s the pros and cons. Do you wait for Conor a little bit longer, or do we just say screw it, rip off the band-aid, go fight Charles Oliveira, co-main event at Madison Square Garden, number one contender fight.”
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but I needed to make the decision. She finally was like, ‘Hey, babe. Your brand and who you are and why people love you is you are a guy who takes action. And I think somewhere along the way, you kinda lost yourself a little bit because you’re a man of your word. You want the fight to happen, so you want to finish it because you’re a man of your word. But you’re dealing with another person who is, you know, it’s on his terms as well. If he doesn’t show up, he doesn’t show up.’”
“So she’s like, ‘I feel like you’ve lost yourself a little bit here and forgot that you’re the guy who takes action,’” he continued. “‘You’re the guy who is constantly coming forward. You’re the guy who constantly moves forward in the face of adversity with complete disregard to your previous failures, to your future opposition, and to your current circumstances. Just go ahead and take action. Go do it if you want to.’”
“And I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t really know if I want to.’ Then we prayed about it a little bit more, and I woke up one morning, called Hunter Campbell, ‘I want Madison Square Garden, Charles Oliveira.’ He’s like, ‘Alright. Done.'”
Chandler would lose that fight and then a subsequent fight against Paddy Pimblett. Now he’s in the same situation as before: waiting around hoping a fight against Conor McGregor comes together, this time for the UFC White House card in June.
“He said a couple times on social media and stuff, calling me out using the hashtag ‘unfinished business,'” Chandler said. “And it’s like, I’m a man of my word, he’s like, ‘I’m a man of my word.’ Even though he pulled out of that one fight, even though he’s had some little lies here and there … he’s more of a man of his word than people think.”
“I could be completely wrong,” he added. “Maybe he never comes back. And if he doesn’t, I wish him well in his retirement, wish him well in his future with him and his family. But I’m fighting on the White House card no matter what. I think I I should be on that card. That’s my pitch. I will show up. I will be draped in the stars and bars. I will be the perfect guy to go out there and make people feel something on the White House lawn.”
“Nobody else is guaranteed action more than me.”
