DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. – Michael Chandler intends to sap the will of Charles Oliveira in their vacant lightweight title fight at UFC 262.
Chandler (22-5 MMA, 1-0 UFC), a former three-time Bellator champion, gets his crack at UFC gold next month when he meets Oliveira (30-8 MMA, 18-8 UFC) for the 155-pound title that was freed up when Khabib Nurmagomedov retired from MMA competition. The opportunity has been a long time coming for him, and Chandler said he expects his “best performance” to date in the matchup.
It likely won’t come easy against Oliveira, though. The Brazilian is on a divisional-best eight-fight winning streak and has seemingly turned a corner in skill that has him looking extremely dangerous. He’s tied for the most finishes in UFC history and holds the record for most submission wins inside the octagon, too.
Chandler thinks he has the ability to stifle Oliveira’s game, though, and forecasts that his pressure will be a key difference-maker in the contest. He said he’s seen Oliveira wilt in fights before, and though he’s not fully relying on that to win, he intends on pushing his foe to that point.
“From the first couple exchanges, don’t let him set the pace, get in his face and quite frankly, I love when a guy comes at me because it puts me in range to land big shots, to land takedowns, get submissions, and do what I need to do because the guy gets overzealous,” Chandler told MMA Junkie. “I’m just as dangerous in all the positions as Charles Oliveira is. It’s not a knock on him. He’s a fast starter. He does tend to fade every now and then, so the good thing is I can keep a good pace for 25 minutes, and that’s the plan: Hope for him to break, hope for him to tuck his tail between his legs, hope for him to give up, but always be prepared for us to see the toughest 25 minutes that Charles Oliveira has ever put together.
“The stakes are higher. It’s a championship fight. This is a young kid who had a glimmer in his eye 20 years ago from Brazil who thought, ‘Hey, maybe I want to be a UFC champion some day.’ Now he gets his opportunity. It just so happens he’s going to run into a buzzsaw.”
UFC 262 takes place May 15 at Toyota Center in Houston. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+.
Some thought Chandler would never make it to this stage in his fighting career. He competed 23 times under the Bellator banner from September 2010 to August 2020, and it wasn’t hard to see him as a lifer in that organization.
But then free agency came about this past summer, and he signed with the UFC. He made his debut in January, earning a first-round knockout of Dan Hooker at UFC 257 to storm onto the scene. It put him in the fast lane to fight for the title, and suddenly, here he is looking to put UFC gold around his waist in just his second octagon appearance.
For Chandler, though, this isn’t the climax of his career. In many ways, he said it’s just the beginning. The UFC’s lightweight division is stacked with talent and big names. He said the winner of Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor 3 will likely be his first title defense, but Justin Gaethje is also in the running, as well.
It’s all big and promising things for him regardless of who is coming for his title, and Chandler said he’s making sure he’s 100 percent prepared for what will be the defining chapter of his career.
“I don’t want to make it sound like I’m going to downplay it whatsoever, (but) I feel like there’s so much more after this fight,” Chandler said. “I’m never a guy who is going to be complacent. I’m never going to be a guy that’s going to be satisfied. It will feel very, very, very good. I will cry, I’m sure. My wife will be able to be there, finally. My dad will be able to be in my corner. My mom will be there. My coaches will be there. It’ll be nice to be able to share that with them. I’ll enjoy it for a week. I’ll give myself a week. I just feel like there’s so many more big fights that are going to happen at lightweight. There’s some fights at welterweight. There’s some big, big fights on the horizon.
“Just got to get the job done May 15, and it will feel absolutely amazing. The road that I took, the practicing of patience, the swallowing of my pride for many, many, many years and being underutilized as one of the best lightweights on the planet – it’s going to feel really, really good. We’ll meet with the UFC brass after. We’ll see what’s next. We probably won’t know until July 10, so we’ll see.”
‘Buzzsaw’ Michael Chandler plans to crush Charles Oliveira’s title dream at UFC 262
