Michael Chandler ‘100%’ confident that Conor McGregor UFC fight will happen in June – ‘We are preparing for it’

Michael Chandler insists he is “100%” confident that he will meet Conor McGregor in the Octagon this summer.

McGregor, who has not fought since 2021 after breaking his leg in a trilogy defeat to Dustin Poirier, labelled his potential return to UFC as “the greatest comeback of all time” in a video posted on X.

McGregor also stated that the fight between himself and Chandler would take place in Las Vegas for International Fight Week on June 29, but there has been no response yet from the UFC to officially confirm the bout.

Chandler, however, speaking to ESPN, believes that the fight is on.

“I have 100% confidence that I’m fighting Conor McGregor on June 29th,” Chandler said. “I don’t know if I’d call [his return] the greatest comeback in sports history, but yeah, as of right now, June 29th is the date, and we are preparing for it.”

On McGregor’s announcement video, the former Bellator lightweight champion said: “I had an idea, but you never quite know.

“Is it gonna be another troll job? Is it gonna be another Conor centre-of-attention deal? Is it gonna be silence? What tactic is he gonna use again to keep everybody on the edge of their seats? Not just me.

“Obviously he’s done a lot of things over the last year or so that were directly intended for me to hear and directly intended for my team to hear that everybody ran with.”

Another sticking point around the potential bout is the weight, with McGregor stating that the fight would take place at 185lbs. Chandler, however, is not convinced.

“Ultimately, I’m 50-50 on it, and ultimately it doesn’t matter,” he said.

“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 [at] 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.

“The UFC and Conor can figure that out and let me know what they’re thinking, and I can have an opinion on it. But as of right now, I couldn’t care less about the weight. The date and the opponent was all that matters.”

Chandler, who joined the UFC in 2020 and has fought five times, winning twice and losing three times – most recently to Poirer at UFC 281, when he was submitted by a rear-naked choke.

The desire for supremacy is what fuels the fire between Chandler and McGregor, and the American had some choice words about the way that McGregor conducts himself.

“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,” Chandler said.

“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.”