Michael Chandler reacts to Conor McGregor fight cancellation: ‘I’m emboldened by this test’

Michael Chandler does not let himself be discouraged.

For 19 months, Chandler has been waiting for a fight with Conor McGregor. The two were supposed to face each other in the main event of UFC 303; unfortunately, that changed last week when McGregor withdrew from the event due to injury. Now, Chandler once again finds himself playing the waiting game, hoping for a quick recovery and comeback for McGregor, and on Monday he released a video addressing the situation and his reaction to it. to the unfortunate change of events.

“I had the rug pulled out from under me at the last possible moment,” Chandler said. “I had just finished my last workout, Thursday morning, I had been hearing rumblings since Monday, obviously, but I actually got the call about an hour after my last workout finished. An hour after a party.

“Anyone who has trained for a fight or anyone who has gone through training camp for something, they go through a very difficult block and then to peak, you get to the very end, you don’t go hard anymore , like throwing yourself into the fire and risking injuries, overtraining, bumps, bruises, cuts, all these different things I was just done with it. The happiest man. healthy, the hardest to kill and the most dangerous I’ve ever been in my entire life, at that point 30 minutes later I get a phone call saying it was all for nothing.

While this is certainly a terrible turn of events for Chandler, it’s not all bad. The fight was not canceled, just postponed, with the idea being to rebook the match for later this year when McGregor recovers. Granted, UFC CEO Dana White says he’s not committing to anything until McGregor is fully recovered, but Chandler still has reason to hope that one day he’ll get the fight which he has continued since signing with the UFC in 2020.

And Chandler certainly seems to want to keep that hope alive.

“So what do I do now?” Chandler thinks. “A little uncertainty in my life. When will this fight take place? What date would it be rebooked for? Which place ? How serious is the injury? Reports came out that it wasn’t that bad, but just needed a little delay. But still no guarantee. But I thrive when there are no guarantees. Just a kid from High Ridge, Missouri, who continued to move forward on a forward trajectory, no matter the opposition, no matter the circumstances, no matter the situation. It’s not up to me to want the results to exist. It’s up to me to do the work. We let the work speak. 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 sympathy. Be emboldened by my situation. Be emboldened by my steadfastness and stillness, to attach my dreams to a shooting star and keep moving forward. If you’ve been on this journey with me for a long time, you know how I operate. You know where my state of mind is, where my mind is. And it’s far from being in landfills. I am emboldened by this test, and this test is not over yet. And this test will be part of my testimony. So we continue to move forward in the face of adversity, with complete disregard for previous failures, previous setbacks, previous things out of control, and future opposition.

Chandler last fought at UFC 281, where he was submitted by Dustin Poirier in the third round.