“Don’t You Dare Disrespect Me”

“Iron” Mike has finally opened up about UFC 303.

Michael Chandler has waited 18 long months to get his hands on Conor McGregor, and that included filming an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter with him. All of that waiting has gone to waste (as of now) because their highly anticipated UFC 303 fight came crashing down as McGregor suffered an injury.

Chandler kept quiet last week after the disastrous news for the most. He put out a three-sentence tweet and then drank away his sorrows.

Today (June 17, 2024), Chandler posted a video about the UFC 303 cancellation on his Instagram.

“Got the rug pulled out from underneath me at the last possible moment. I just had got done with my last sparring session Thursday morning,” Chandler said in a two-minute video. Had been hearing rumblings since Monday, obviously, but really got the call about an hour after my last sparring session was completed. An hour after a celebration. Anyone who has trained for a fight or has trained for something you go through a really hard block, and then in order to peak you get toward the very end, you don’t go hard anymore as to throw yourself into the fire and take the chance of injuries, overtraining, bumps, bruises, cuts and all those different things. I had just gotten done with that.”

So what do I do now? A little bit of uncertainty in my life,” Chandler said. “When’s this fight going to happen? What date would it be rebooked for? What venue? How bad is the injury? Reports have come out that it’s not that bad, just needs a little bit of a delay. “But still, no guarantees. But I thrive when there are no guarantees. Just a walk-on kid from High Ridge, Missouri, who has continued to trod in a forward trajectory no matter what the opposition, no matter what the circumstances, no matter the situation. It’s not up to me to will outcomes into existence. It is up to me to do the work. We let the work talk. 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 kind of sympathy. Be emboldened by my situation. Be emboldened by my steadfastness and my immovability of hitching my dreams to a shooting star and continuing to move forward. If you’ve been on this journey with me for a long time you know how I operate. You know where my mindset is, where my mental is. It is nowhere near down in the dumps. I am emboldened by this test, and this test ain’t done yet,” Chandler concluded.

It’s unknown at this time when McGregor vs. Chandler will be rebooked, however, there is some hope for it late this summer.

Chandler has not competed since UFC 281.

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