Michael Chandler glad he waited for UFC to book Conor McGregor fight

Though he had to wait more than a year to get his chance to fight arguably the biggest star in the UFC, Michael Chandler is taking a victory lap after his patience paid off with an official bout agreement to face the former two-division champion later this summer.

In a video posted on his Instagram page, Chandler disclosed that he was never as worried as most fans were that a fight with McGregor was never going to happen, hinting the UFC made him feel more at ease that the fight contract was eventually going to get signed.

“I never really doubted it as much as you guys did,” Chandler said. “I had a lot more reassurances behind the scenes than you guys knew about. I just knew it was going to take time. … The hard work eventually pays off, you just have to still be standing there when it does. And it’s not that people don’t do the right things, it’s that they don’t do the right things for long enough.”

The McGregor-Chandler grudge match, which will take place at welterweight (170 pounds), has been more than a year in the making.