Michael Chandler believes Conor McGregor will “stain” his legacy if he doesn’t make their fight happen: “That, to me, screams insecurity and trying to stay relevant”

Michael Chandler just wants his fight against Conor McGregor to get booked.

Chandler and McGregor are the coaches of TUF 31 and the hope was that they would fight later this summer. Yet, the hold-up has been McGregor re-entering the USADA testing pool, but for Chandler, he says he doesn’t care if all the Irishman needs is just two clean tests. Instead, Chandler wants the fight to happen soon, but revealed it now might be the winter.

“Conor says one thing, USADA says another,” Chandler told ESPN (h/t MMAMania). “Conor [likes to] publicly be in spats, whether it be Dana here and there, sponsors here and there, people who it doesn’t even make sense for him to be picking fights with, different weight classes, different organizations, all kinds of stuff. It’s all just a big show. I don’t know what the understanding is. I could see it very well being just two clean tests. I have no problem with it being two clean tests. I could care less. If you do two clean tests, sounds to me like you’re clean. At this point, who am I to say what the stipulations are? I’m ready for him to be cleared or at least get that answer. At this point, we don’t have an answer.”

As of right now, Michael Chandler is still waiting to get a contract for the fight against Conor McGregor. Yet, the longer this goes on, many believe it’s more likely the scrap won’t happen. However, ‘Iron’ disagrees with that assessment.

Instead, Chandler thinks if McGregor doesn’t go through with this fight it will result as a stain on his overall legacy.

“I think Conor, to his core, really is romantic about combat sports, he loves it,” Chandler said. “And I think he’s got an ego the size of Texas. He needs to get back in there and continue to feel that rush, feel the crowd, acting like he’s a god for those 15 minutes, 25 minutes, whatever it may be. So, I think he’s coming back. It sure would be a huge stain on his legacy, leading everybody down a road, making people think that he’s coming back, and then kind of chickening out at the very end and only doing it for the publicity. That, to me, screams insecurity and trying to stay relevant rather than seeing through your commitment.”

Chandler is coming off a submission loss to Dustin Poirier and is 2-3 in the UFC.

Do you think Michael Chandler and Conor McGregor will fight in 2023?