UFC Hall of Famer: Conor McGregor fight could make Michael Chandler a star

Just days after Michael Chandler posted a video on social media expressing his frustration with future opponent Conor McGregor seemingly avoiding re-entering the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency drug testing pool, Chandler got a piece of advice from a UFC Hall of Famer.

Daniel Cormier, who retired in August 2020 and transitioned to a full-time gig as a broadcaster for the UFC, encouraged the 37-year-old Chandler to keep getting on McGregor’s case because a fight with the former two-division champion is simply too important to Chandler’s career to let it fall apart.

“I don’t know what Chandler can do to make him move quicker into USADA, to make him agree to the fight faster,”Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “I guess just kind of talking [expletive] to him might help, but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough. Mike’s in a weird position. I spoke to him off the record today a little bit, just two text messages.

“He’s in a position where he’s just got to kind of wait and see, because that’s where he is. But my one bit of advice to him was don’t let the fight fall by the wayside. Do whatever you have to do in order to keep this fight together because this is a fight that can really make you at a level that no one else in the fight game can do.”

Chandler, the No. 5 ranked fighter in the UFC lightweight division, is coming off a third-round submission loss to Poirier last November. If he and McGregor do fight in the future, it would mark the fifth straight time he’s fought a former champion or interim champion in his six UFC fights.

He and McGregor, who were opposing coaches on “The Ultimate Fighter 31,” are scheduled to fight when the show wraps up on Aug. 15. However, McGregor has been out of action since breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier in July 2021. He needs to undergo six months of drug testing with USADA before he can be cleared to fight again.

The UFC’s final pay-per-view event of 2023 is on Dec. 16, and if McGregor were to rejoin the testing pool today, his six-month testing window would push his fight with Chandler into 2024.