It doesn’t matter to Michael Chandler what weight Conor McGregor chooses them to fight in. After more than a year of rest, the only details that the American wants to have certainty about are the date and opponent of his next fight.
Before New Year, McGregor announced his return on June 29. In the short video uploaded, the Irish superstar confirmed fighting Chandler. The announcement, however, was a surprise for some after the fighter shared that they would meet at 185, a class weight for “The Notorious.”
Neither the UFC nor UFC CEO Dana White has confirmed the details, but Chandler shared that the promotion gave his team the date of June 29 for his fight. Despite some expressing doubt over McGregor’s announcement, “Iron” shared that he’s certain that the date and the name of his opponent is now final, saying he already has plans to start the training this month at Kill Cliff FC in South Florida and will shift to camp for 12 weeks in April.
As for the weight class, Chandler wants to take McGregor’s words with a pinch of salt, suggesting it is only one of his opponent’s mind games. Yet, for the 37-year-old, it doesn’t matter, saying he “couldn’t care less about the weight” and that “the date and the opponent was all that matters.”
“Ultimately, I’m 50-50 on it. And ultimately it doesn’t matter,” Chandler told ESPN. “I spent five weeks around Conor. I don’t care if he wants to fight at 185, 170, 205, whatever it might be. You’ve got to remember: He doesn’t want to fight 155 because he wants everybody to believe he’s bigger than he is. He, in his mind, can’t fight at 170, because I called him out at 170, therefore he’s doing what I said at 170. So he has to say 185, just like he did in the intro scene of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ telling me it was gonna be at 185. I don’t give a rip about what the weight is. …
“He always wants to establish dominance, whether it be via social media, whether it be the media with what he’s saying and what he’s doing. And he also wants to try to establish dominance to make people think that I am less than him. And that’s fine. I’ll take that all day long because I am confident in myself. I don’t have an ego. I’m ready to fight, and I’m ready to take this dude’s head off. Fighting at 185 makes him look bigger, sound bigger, feel bigger. That’s what Conor does. He’s done nothing his entire career but pump himself up – both in person by the way he walks, his stature, maybe risers in his shoes. I don’t know, but he does things to constantly make himself look, sound and feel bigger, because that’s the persona that he has tried to create.”
