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Nov. 9, 2020 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
01:45:35
E305 Michael Chandler

Michael Chandler is a three-time Bellator Lightweight World Champion who just signed his first UFC contract. They discuss the current state of the UFC, what it's like rising the ranks as a professional fighter and his recent signing with Dana White and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.     New Merch https://theovonstore.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   This episode is brought to you by:   Magic Mind https://magicmind.co and use promo code THEO for 10% off   The Zebra https://thezebra.com/theo   Tushy https://hellotushy.com/theo for 10% off   Bridge Credit Solutions https://bridgecreditsolutions.com/theo   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Music: “Shine” - Bishop Gunn http://bit.ly/Shine_BishopGunn   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Hit the Hotline 985-664-9503   Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://bit.ly/TPW_VideoHotline   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Find Theo   Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEKV_MOhwZ7OEcgFyLKilw   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Producer Nick https://instagram.com/realnickdavis   Associate Producer: Sean Dugan https://www.instagram.com/seandugan/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today's guest is a mixed martial artist.
He's a three-time Bellator lightweight world champion.
He's a fitness and training entrepreneur as well, I think it's safe to say.
And he just signed his contract for the UFC, entering an insane lightweight division.
Happy to have him here today, Mr. Michael Chandler.
I'm going to let myself go wild.
Shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Shine on me.
And I will find a song I've been singing just before.
And what are you taking right now, Mike?
This is just my vitamins I freaking completely forgot all the way.
Okay, because there's a lot of rumors about you out there.
What are you taking right now?
I just want to know exactly.
It was fish oil.
It was fish oil, turmeric, beta-alanine, magnesium, BCAAs.
And do you take that once a day?
Twice a day.
There's the formula at night.
There's like one or two other things that help me sleep, I think.
That's about it.
Okay.
Will you?
I do.
I just did it for my buddy yesterday.
Dude, I needed a little bit of rest.
I don't know if I could take your supplement list, man.
No, dude, it's all just like the little micronutrients that you're probably not getting from your food, and that's it.
And then for me, for you, for all of us, like just anti-inflammatory antioxidants.
Like that's the most important thing.
Did you see a blood specialist or how did you start to get on this regimen?
I did.
I did a couple years ago just to, just to look at all my stuff, like where I was at, hormone levels and all that kind of stuff.
Because that's the idea.
Like how do you legally keep your body in tip-top shape?
Good diet and rest are like the two most important thing, but then it's supplementation, making sure you're taking care of your body after every single workout.
Like BCAAs, protein, those are the two things that I would die on a freaking mountain for.
Those are the two things that I've been taking over the last 10 years that are just that have always kept me feeling good.
So you take them right post-workout, obviously, protein, and then you do the BCAAs.
Yeah.
I mean, pretty much I have a blender bottle with me three times a day.
Like in the morning, I get up and I'd, oh, creatine.
So I do creatine for the brain bed.
You do creatine when I would bust boy, actually, when I bust tables.
Well, that's the thing.
Like, I kind of steered away from it because I thought creatine was just like, you know, the freaking dudes who just wanted the big biceps and they freaking lift weights in high school.
Inno Explode.
It was Inno Explode and freaking creatine.
Dude, that NO Explode.
That's all it was back in the day.
We didn't even read the whole label.
We just thought it said NOX on it.
Nobody knew what the heck it was.
It was just like.
He busted some kid at our school with two things of it.
They called the police on it.
Exactly.
He was trying to sell it.
Trying to sell it.
Freaking snorting Inno Explode.
He's just spooning it out to people.
Here, put this in your mouth.
Some dumb kids out there before his test getting two bits of it.
I got me an awake idiot.
I'm pretty sure I got a name, man.
I'm pretty sure I got a name.
Pretty sure I got a name.
You got a D, Kevin.
Kevin always got a D, man.
You got a D minus, man.
Kevin always got a D. Kevin was that kid who would sit in class and he would have the hoodie and he would close it completely and then sit there the entire class.
Just draw both strings down and just have it completely shut.
I'm cool, Ms. Davis.
Leave me alone, man.
Had a rough night.
So what else?
So your regimen is sleep.
What is it?
Because when I watch you, man, like, you know, when I watch your fights, it's like, Jesus Christ.
Even as a viewer, I'm like, will this guy stop for a second so I can like, it's too many frames per minute.
It's like, how can I visually catch up to what's going on here?
Dude, I mean, that to me is just, that's God's gifts, man.
Like, some, some people, because you know what it is?
It's, I'm not afraid to freaking lose.
And I'm not afraid to, I'm not afraid to, like, it becomes cliche.
I'm not, I'm really not afraid to die in there.
And I'm really not afraid to get tired either.
Trust me, I've been tired.
I've passed out.
I passed out inside of a fight.
You get tired.
Yeah, I passed out inside of a fight once from just exhaustion.
Woke up before the fifth round.
Coach carried me to the stool, woke up on the stool, and then fought the fifth round.
So once you've been there, you're just like, well, there's really nothing that's going to stop me.
And I think it's just, it's wrestling.
Like in wrestling, it was seven hard minutes in their face, push them out of bounds, take them down, do whatever you got to do, like to win the match.
Like shoot more times than he does, go harder than he does, foot on the gas, all gas, no breaks, like, and just go.
So I think that wrestling mindset is just like, now it doesn't work as well in fighting because it's 15 minutes, it's 25 minutes.
You got to be a little more, you got to negotiate those spaces a little bit more and not go so hard all the time or else you will die.
Do you, is it a psychological thing for you in that first round?
Because I mean, you come out in some first rounds like, dude, I would even, you know, if they let me wear a ton of padding, I might go against you in like a ninth round, but a first round would be somebody wanting to die, it seems like.
Do you come out there with a different psychology in the first round?
Is that part of your mindset?
Like, I'm put everything is right here?
Yeah.
Because I think some people, some people are slow starters.
And case in point, like, I think Habib finished Justin Gacci the way that he did because I think Justin Gacci wasn't ready for Habib to come out with him, come out the way that he did, come out that hot.
So you can usually just, you can get guys flustered.
You get, get guys nervous, get guys scared.
They immediately become a defensive fighter right away.
And that's why the only fights I've lost are the ones that people ran away from me, you know, and I lose a split decision.
You know, like that's literally the only, pretty much the way that I've lost.
When you were watching the Khabib and Gacy, what did you think after that first round?
Because I felt like Gacy got a lot of time on his feet against him.
A lot of guys don't get that.
It seemed like do not get as much time against Khabib on their feet.
Yeah, no, and I think that was the most surprising thing is we thought the striking was going to lean towards Gaichi's favor.
Yet, Khabib, I think the manner in which Khabib fights is just hectic, crazy, fast pace.
It's not that skilled.
If you go back and watch the fight, there really wasn't a ton of strikes that were landed.
They landed on Justin's hands.
They landed on Justin's elbows, forearms.
It wasn't like he hurt Gauchi numerous times.
I think he just got Gaichi scared.
And I hate using the word scared because I don't like to talk about the guys in my division terms.
And obviously, Justin's not a guy who gets scared, but I know what you're saying, that energy in the beginning.
Or it's even like, who was I just talking to?
Oh, well, I was talking to Brendan about it, I think.
It's almost like if you get thrown into a scenario where you're just not ready, you can make bad decisions, you know?
And I think Justin Gaetchy also just was making bad decisions on the ground.
So I don't necessarily think Justin Gaetchy is that bad on the ground.
I think he just got there and he was just like, what do I do?
This guy's nuts.
You know, this guy's a freaking mauler.
Yeah, he's like a rare snake kind of.
Yeah, exactly.
They're like, why haven't scientists found this dude yet?
It's almost like you would see him more on one of those like David Attenborough kind of like the Russian Anakan than you would like.
It seems like he hasn't been discovered.
It's like, will somebody test this dude for reptilianism?
Yeah, or like, or like 3,000 miles below the sea level.
Down there at the bottom of the ocean somewhere.
He's running on some old water for sure.
When you're watching that fight, did you think at all, and I'm a novice fight watcher.
You know, I'm new into like just even absorbing a lot of what you guys' world is like.
And the biggest reason is just because it's something that's so scared me my whole life, like any physical altercation, like never learned how to defend myself, never learned any of that growing up.
Nobody even in my ear, like, hey, just at least stand there and get hit.
You know, none of that.
So I definitely come from a place of fascination.
Did you think when you were watching the Khabib and Gachi that Khabib kind of let the first round happen?
Do you feel like he could have finished it earlier or do you feel like it just that the way it played out was the way it played out?
I think the way it played out was the way it played out because I think, I mean, I think Khabib just was going and going and just turned it into a fight real quick, fast paces.
And I loved it.
He just fought with reckless abandon.
And this is a guy who's undefeated.
Most of the time, you see guys who are undefeated protect that record by fighting a little bit more, you know, a little bit more timid or a little bit more diplomatic, a little bit smarter, you know, if you will.
But he went in there and wanted to get into a fist fight with the craziest striker in the division.
It kind of goes back a little bit to what you were just saying about not being afraid to be exhausted, you know, not being, because I've never thought about it like that.
Like I go into any sort of physical, if I'm at the gym or if I'm training or something, like, yeah, I'm thinking, okay, in a little bit, I'm going to be exhausted.
That fear is a real, like a living fear that's in me.
I think that's one of the greatest fears of anybody across all walks of life when it comes to athletics.
Like nobody likes to get tired.
People are afraid of getting hurt.
People are afraid of losing.
But man, getting tired is the worst thing in the world.
Now, also, getting tired on the football field means you got caught.
It means you're running down.
You got 80 yards and you're running and you get caught by the D-back who's just faster than you because you slowed down.
That's not that big of a deal.
But you get tired and locked into a cage with another man with four-ounce gloves.
That's a scary spot to be in because when the lactic acid builds up and the heart rate is through the roof and you can't feel your arms and legs and then you got a man coming at you trying to knock your head off, that's a scary place to be.
And that's a place where nobody wants to be.
So you know that scenario is always right there.
It's only a couple crazy moves away or a couple scrambles or getting hurt and get your heart rate up.
It's always there.
So you just have to, it's like the movie 300 where he always talks about fear is always a constant when he's talking to his young son at the very beginning of the movie.
Fear is always a constant, but accepting it, that's where we win the battle.
Accepting the fact that you're always going to, that fear is always going to be there and then push him through it.
That's where the rub is.
That's where the champions go.
Yeah.
It's interesting, man.
Yeah, because I just accepted it in the beginning.
I was like, oh, I'm just afraid as fuck when I was young.
I just never unaccepted it.
I just never, but yeah, that's interesting.
Man, I was watching that fight last night with you and Eddie Alvarez, man.
What a fight.
Can you go back and watch that sort of thing?
Because I noticed at the end, it's almost like a, you know, you were winning the fight.
I think it was four rounds to maybe, you know, I mean, maybe 3-1 or something in the final round.
But it's still been such an amazing battle.
Like, in that last couple of minutes, do you start to get into a defensive mindset?
Like, okay, I have this.
I probably have this win in the bag.
Like, when do you kind of apply like strategic breaks?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you know, de-accelerate, but knowing that you already probably have the win if you can get to the finish line.
I never do.
And that's not a smart thing to do.
You know, if you're a young fighter listening to this right now, like it's, it's made me a great living.
It's got me a lot of fans because I just, I'm all gas, no breaks.
But it's also bit me in the behind numerous times, you know, and even, you know, as we talk about, like, I passed out at the end of the fourth round of my first Benson Henderson fight and then lost the fifth round.
I won the first four, lost the fifth round.
Oh, yeah, that's a fight, huh?
Just because I just kept going.
And it wasn't because I lost the fifth round because I took my foot off the gas.
I just, I fought so hard the first four rounds that I didn't have anything left in the tank.
And I freaking peed blood afterwards and had rhabdomyolysis and all kinds of crazy stuff.
And what do you do, though?
So when you're heading into that type of a round, like when you're heading into that type of rounds, man, you end up in those, I mean, yeah, the first fight against Benz in that round, that fight was insane.
I mean, he took a lot of hits in that whole fight.
I mean, that thing was crazy.
The suplex, I'm like, what?
I don't even know.
Are we in like Roman times?
Like, I didn't know what's going on, right?
It was intense, right?
But yeah, when you're going into that type of a round, what do you do?
Man, so that was uncharted territory.
But you know that you've run out of a lot of your natural gas.
Yeah, that was uncharted territory.
You know, I never would have thought I would lose consciousness inside the fight.
Thank God it happened right at the end.
The bell rang, and I'm just sitting there on my knees, and I'm not thinking about anything because I'm not even conscious.
You kind of stumbled, right?
And they're like, that's what the announcer said.
I'm not even conscious, man.
And then I sat down on the stool.
One coach is in front of me, and then this coach behind me yells something, and that's when I like did this.
And then I asked my coach in front of me, did I just get knocked out?
Did I get choked out?
He's like, no, man.
This is my Dutch kickboxing coach, Henry Hooft.
He's like, no, man.
What are you talking about, man?
We're going to the fifth round, man.
You're doing good.
You're going to win this fight.
Yeah, you're in spelling class.
Yeah, and I'm like, yeah, for sure.
And I remember I couldn't lift my arms because I don't think the blood quite got to my, because remember, you said I was stumbling because my feet weren't working and my arms weren't working.
So I couldn't lift my hands up to protect myself for that fifth round.
But that's just uncharted territory.
But it's also that primal animal instinct that you just have inside you where it's like, at that point, you're a possum backed up into a corner.
And no matter what, you just got to fight.
You either just curl your tail between your legs and die.
But how do you adjust your strategy at that point?
Well, at that point, the strategy was somewhat survive.
And that's why I would say, if I had more in the tank, I would have just went forward with reckless abandon.
But at some point, you're like, okay, well, I need to take a little bit of step back, try to breathe a little bit, because I gotten to the point of no return.
There's a difference between being afraid to get to the point of no return.
So all the way leading up to it, you're only fighting at 50%, 60%, 70%.
But if you fight at 100%, get to the point of no return.
After that, your 100% is like 40%, 50%.
And you're fighting at 50%, not being 100% offensive or kind of trying to come forward.
But essentially, you're in survival mode.
And then once you get your wits back about you or a little bit of gas, a little bit of blood back to your brain, then you can start throwing offense again, which is that's kind of what I did in that round, even though I essentially just got into a grappling match with him and lost the fifth round pretty bad.
Got a big old cut, you know.
But let's go to, we got a question right here.
Riley, can you hear everybody okay?
Yeah.
You can?
Everything's good.
Okay, great.
Hello, hello, Chase Malton out of Virginia.
For Mr. Chandler, if you saw that Anderson Silva fight this weekend, what are your thoughts on it?
And do you think he should retire?
Because I think most of us do.
And what do you think about just, you know, guys kind of out of their prime trying to fight anyway?
Good question.
Good question.
A lot of good questions came in for you, man.
You know, Anderson Silva is, you know, one of the greatest of all time.
But when you watch his last couple fights, it's hard to remember Anderson Silva, the greatest of all time.
I think that's why I think what GSP did so well is he was like, I'm done.
You know, I did my thing, crushed it.
I made my money.
I left a good taste in people's mouths of, A, who I am as a man, as a competitor, what I accomplished, and then I'm going to be out, the Barry Sanders, if you will.
It's always good to retire before people think you should because the fans always want more out of you.
Selfishly, the fans, all of his fans in Brazil, they want more out of Anderson Zila.
Keep going, keep going, keep going.
But before you know it, you lose in devastating fashion again, or you lose that bad again, and then people can kind of forget.
So I would like to see him hang it up, even though it sounds like he's going to.
But I would have said this two, three fights ago as well.
Man, he's an icon in Brazil.
He's a worldwide superstar when it comes to mixed martial arts.
I never want to talk about someone's money or what is enough money or what is enough legacy or whatever, but I feel like he should have enough legacy, should have enough money, should have enough happiness, should have enough of what he's built to be able to sail off into the sunset.
So then what do you think it is that brings someone back at that moment?
Like if you had to get inside of his mindset knowing what it's like to be a fighter.
Yeah.
Well, and I think that's the difference.
And I don't want to bring other people up, but I think there's definitely been guys that you're like, okay, that guy's only fighting because he blew a bunch of money.
He needs some money.
He needs to make a paycheck.
Oh, if I was in Brazil, dude, with the drugs and women, I'd have blown it all, dude.
You know what I'm saying?
Back into the ring on one foot.
Dude, well, that's the thing, but I don't think I would.
No, I think Anderson Silva is the guy who just, I bet he's set for life.
I could be wrong.
Like I said, I don't know the guy personally, but there's a lot of guys where you say that guy right there.
I know why he's stepping in the cage tonight.
He needs another paycheck.
He needs to.
Like Nick Diaz, you mean?
Well, yeah.
I just made that up also.
I don't know.
I wonder.
I don't know how those Diaz brothers are doing.
I bet they're doing all right.
But I mean, I know Nate Diaz did all right when that Connor fight made a couple million.
But, you know, it's tough because I'm going to get to that point eventually, you know, where people are like, dang, it's time to hang it up.
But in my mind, in my camp with my coaches, it's something you always have to go back to your family and your coaches because you're never going to want to quit.
You're never going to want to stop.
Right, yeah, that's what I'm getting at.
You're never going to want to quit.
No, even though a guy like GSP, I mean, there's him on record saying he hated fighting.
Like he, he hated, he would show up to the arena and pray to God that a comet would come down and hit the arena and just end his misery.
That freaking, that someone would pull the fire alarm, that there would be a bomb threat, that there would be something where he would just be like, thank God I could go home and don't have to do this.
He talked about and documented kind of like the anxiety that the guy went through.
And this is one of the greatest of all time, a guy who looked unbeatable at times, you know?
Still does.
Still, yeah.
I mean, still, I think he could come into the cage right now at 155, 170, and win the freaking title.
185, possibly, you know?
So you never know what's motivating a guy, but you got to go back to your coaches, you know, your closest of kin, your mentors, your family, and then the people around you that know no matter how much more that you accomplish, how much more money you make, they don't benefit from it.
They just want to see you happy.
Those are the people, those are the people you got to listen to, you know?
Yeah, it's interesting because even in every form of entertainment or survival, anything, I guess, maybe.
I mean, I can relate it a little bit in my own life, but yeah, there's these voices that push you to succeed, and like even these invisible voices of people that naysayers, you know, haters that say you can't, you know.
But then at a certain point, those voices aren't really helping you anymore.
It's more the voices that actually can see you as a human and saying, like, okay, you know, we care about you.
There's no, you've proven yourself.
You know, what do you do now?
How do you manage that?
Because there's a lot of mismanagement at that point as well.
And sometimes you're so blind.
You just come up so blindly, like just throwing fists, especially in you guys' career, you know.
And I see it with Poirier in a lot of his fights, in his old fights.
You can see he didn't even have a look in his eyes.
He's just like an animal.
You have that animal instinct.
But then you get to a point where you're standing on top of the cage and you're like, okay, I'm not in this.
I'm not fighting for nothing anymore.
Like I'm at a point where I can make some choices for myself.
Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of it comes with maturity and stuff, too.
And I told you, it was cool.
Like, right around the time that we met, you know, I was getting ready to go fight.
And that was the first time I ever met Poirier because Poiri was cornering a guy who was on the same card.
And I just went straight up to him.
It was in Connecticut.
Oh, Saba.
Hamasi.
Saba.
Hamas.
Sabah.
Something.
Yeah, he got a couple wins in a row.
Yeah, he's good.
And Poirier was there the whole fight week, cornering him and whatnot.
And I just went straight up to him because I knew at this point I was probably going to leave Bellator and I was probably going to hopefully sign with the UFC.
My goal was I wanted to sign with the UFC.
So I knew I was about to walk up to a guy that was probably going to be in the same division for sure.
I'm probably going to end up fighting him.
But to me, the respect level for a guy like Poirier or even anybody in the division, I don't, I respect you if you step inside the cage and you make your living doing what I do, doing what we do, because I understand the perils, the trials, the tribulations of this tough sport that we call our profession.
But went up to him and we were talking a little bit.
And I just, you know, I congratulated him on his last win.
He had just beaten Dan Hooker a couple weeks prior.
Congratulate him on the fight of the year candidate that it was.
It was a phenomenal fight.
His heart, his determination, what he does outside the cage, the man that he is, the competitor that he is, the father that he is.
And then also we kind of talked like about the journey a little bit where it's like, man, 30-something years old now, got a wife, got a kid, got it, you know, doing what we're doing is much different than back in the day.
I kind of brought up how he was some young shaved head punk kid on that documentary.
You saw the documentary.
Oh, yeah.
His documentary.
And that was Dustin Poirier from back in the day.
And he was in his documentary.
Crazy.
This is an insane thing coming out of the swamp.
Exactly.
But it's so cool to see where people start and then where people end up and watch people's maturation throughout the journey.
And he would probably, if he was sitting here today, he would probably say, man, his career, I think, is a blueprint for a guy who started at a certain point, has ended up where he's at.
He's at the top of the game, top of the division, top of the toughest division in the entire world, about to fight the biggest global superstar of mixed martial arts and Conor McGregor.
He's in a phenomenal spot, but you don't just fall there by accident.
You don't fall to the top of the mountain by coincidence.
He had to build and climb and plod and tread towards that.
And a lot of it comes with good things happening to good people.
And it's not that people don't do the right things.
It's that people don't do the right things for long enough.
And he has put his time in, grown into a phenomenal man, father, husband.
And he's going to be rewarding.
He's a good role model.
So it's cool just seeing the maturation process of us as fighters a decade later.
Yeah, it's wild.
And it's also, it's interesting to see because, you know, growing up, like a lot of kids in my neighborhood would fight a lot of like, you know, it was a lot of like, you know, a lot of poor kids kind of fight.
You know, it's just something to do.
You don't have cable.
You fucking throw two fucking, you know, 48 pounders in the ditch and let them go at it.
You know what I'm saying?
Like just different.
Dude, I used to invite friends over, like kind of rich friends.
And then we would go on a bike ride in the neighborhood and I knew some kids were going to fucking fight them.
Oh my God.
And you weren't going to be in the fight.
I was Don King out there, dog.
Standing on the side of this.
My buddy's like, I thought we were just going to rent movies.
I'm like, well, dude, you got to deal with fucking little Thomas Hoover first, son.
This dude weighs 47 pounds, bro.
You scrappy.
Dude, that's funny.
That's a true story.
That's a true story, bro.
One of my friends still gets mad at me about it, man.
But yeah, I used to be.
One of the rich friends?
One of the rich friends, you guys are still friends?
I'm like, you'll be fine.
He's got a really nice freaking haro with pegs on it and stuff.
And the kid comes out with a freaking busted up mongoose.
Like, hey, what's up?
Hey, what's up, Tommy Hoover?
Yeah, Tommy Hoover comes out, dude.
He's got that natural shake in him, bro.
Just the Lord scoliosis, bro.
He just mixed up a couple elements, you know?
But yeah, I used to do that shit.
But so it's interesting to get to a point.
It seems interesting from an outsider's perspective to get to a point where, yeah, to come from a place of fighting for your peace of mind or for your comfort or to feel okay, you know?
Like I do stand-up comedy to feel okay.
I get on the stage.
I need something from people.
Fighters, we're all trying to prove something to ourselves or to others.
But to come from a place of fighting, because that's such a physical and brute thing, to then get to a place of having some sort of peace in your life where whatever those voices are that probably made you so angry in the first place, that's a wild ride you guys are on.
Yeah, and it's funny too, as the sport has evolved, and even in the very beginning of the sport, you know, the sport started with, you know, Dana White and these guys, they didn't even start the UFC.
It was started by a different group, and then the UFC and the Fertidas, Dana White bought it and turned it into what it is today.
But I'm sure there was guys who fought just for, there was no money in it either.
So it wasn't like they were trying to make a bunch of money.
It was really who was the toughest, who's the baddest dude on the planet from what vocation, from what background?
You got your boxer.
There was a boxer wearing one boxing glove where he could throw a jab, but he could also grapple.
Had your karate guys, your sumo wrestling guys, your street fighters, your whatever.
Backflippers.
Some guys get in there and just do a backflip and they get their ass kicked.
Yeah, exactly.
That's how it kind of started.
And then it evolved into the sport of, okay, we can make a living out of this or it's just a really cool hobby.
So you saw guys who kind of came from a place of anger, but then you see a guy like myself.
I just like hand-to-hand combat, and I don't really like confrontation.
The funny thing is I'm very similar to you.
Like if someone walked in right now and wanted to fight, I'd get this weird nervous tension.
And I'm like, I'm not trying to fight, man.
I'm not here to fight.
But you put me inside the cage with you and you put a check on the line and it's a competition and I can prove myself in a contest of hand-to-hand combat.
that's when the real competitor comes out of me because I love the contest, but I don't like the conflict.
So somewhere in between there is where you...
No, all of it does, I think.
I mean, at this point, I realize that all of my admirers, fans, or people who follow me on my platforms or want to say, man, that guy's a guy that I want my kid to be like.
They don't do it because I can kick people's ass.
They don't care about that.
They do it because they say, man, that guy is a symbol and a manifestation of a little guy from a little town who was taught to do little things, who had a bunch of ups, a couple downs, never quit, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, dusted himself off every time he got knocked down and became a champion because of it.
Now is in the best position of his career because of his stick-to-itiveness and his continued drive to move forward.
And yeah, it's really cool that he, you know, it's a bonus that he likes to bite down on his mouthpiece and get into a brawl inside of a cage, inside of an octagon.
But really, we like him for the symbol of what he is, the metaphor for what his career stands for.
And I think that's what I like because to me, fighting is so much deeper than just the 15 minutes inside the cage, the 25 minutes inside the cage.
It's how you live your life, the honor, the respect, the integrity, and the character that you can build.
Because someday I'm going to be retired.
I'm going to look back and say, man, that was a really fun ride.
It was painful at times, but man, I impacted a lot of people throughout it.
And we had a really good time and made some coin to be able to take care of my family.
Yeah, it's funny, and I hate to keep bringing up Dustin, but we're Dustin Poiri fans here.
I'm a Dustin Poirier fan.
Yeah.
I'm going to fight him someday.
It's going to happen.
It'll be a great fight.
That's the thing.
It'll be a great fight.
You don't have to hate each other, right?
Yeah, 100%.
And it seemed like there's a lot of respect, especially in that division, man.
I mean, there's some, God, that's insane.
It's just bumper-to-bumper traffic in that division.
But yeah, I remember like about a year ago, there was just kind of this thing where you got to start to see who Dustin was as a person through his fighting.
And it was even after the Khabib loss.
But he was bummed.
I remember we talked a little bit and I said, but man, you don't understand.
Like people are seeing you, you're becoming like a hero to people.
Like you're becoming win or lose.
It doesn't matter anymore.
Not that this is just my mindset.
I mean, obviously he wants to win every time, but I'm like, you're becoming, people can see who you are through your art.
And that's one thing that that's what's really amazing, I think, about having the ability to be in some sort of performance, whether it's fighting, stand-up, anything, if you can, or anything.
I mean, if you're just, even if you're just somebody that's going, you know, picking up garbage, if you can, if people could see your heart through whatever you're doing, man, that's pretty powerful.
Dude, that's what it is.
And that's why we have to be careful as a human race, as a society, to be separated from one another, six foot distance, wearing masks.
Don't want to turn it into the political thing or the pandemic thing or any of that kind of stuff.
But it's like, I believe God created us for relationships and not just personal one-on-one relationships, but even the relationship that Dustin Poirier's fans have with him by watching him via social media, by watching him in his fights.
And truth be told, people would care less about him if he was undefeated.
People would care less about him if he was perfect.
People love the fact that he gets beaten up, battered, bruised, and then picks himself back up.
He gets back on the mic and says, you know what?
I'm not perfect.
I'm not undefeated.
I have blemishes on my record.
Look at me.
When you mess up, raise your hand and say, hey, this is me.
This is my baggage.
This is my loss, but this is my loss to deal with.
And you will say things about me and you will criticize and you will nitpick.
But trust me, I may have lost the battle tonight, but the war will be won down the line.
And that's what is the beauty of mixed martial arts.
I have five losses on my record, but people don't care about my losses whenever I win my next fight, or even if I lose my next fight, they don't care.
The best fighters on the entire planet right now are the ones with multiple losses.
The biggest superstars.
George Masvedal has like 10, 11 losses.
Diaz has nothing more losses than wins, man.
Connor's got almost five losses now.
Khabib, phenomenal what he has done.
John Jones, phenomenal what they have done.
But it's also the ups and the downs, the ebbs and the flows, the losses and the wins that really draw people to these fighters.
Yeah, and the different types of fighters.
Yeah, it's like some people are like, yeah, they just want the undefeated, but I think more people can relate to a guy that has like a, you know, has the ups and downs.
It's like even like Anthony Smith is one of my favorites, you know, and it's not, I could care less if he wins or loses.
It's like every time he comes out of that tunnel, it makes me feel like, damn, bro, whatever's going on in my life, I can, I'll, it's going to be fine, you know, this guy can do, this guy can come back.
You know, I can keep, it just reminds me that I can keep going.
And that's so cool.
Like even, even you just saying that, like, I, even, it gives me a different perspective knowing you and then and him.
Like I don't, I don't know him and I don't watch a ton of his fights either.
Like, it's, but it's just funny how certain people gravitate towards or are drawn to certain fighters.
And I think that's what's so beautiful about mixed martial arts.
And obviously I'm biased because I'm in it, but it's, it's so much easier to look at a guy like Anthony Smith or even any of us fighters compared to, like, say, a baseball player who, you know, he, chances are the only thing, the only thing you see inside of his performance is, okay, can he catch the ball?
Can he run the bases?
Can he hit the ball?
We get the luxury of being inside of a cage fighting, and there's second to second to second, and each second that happens inside each of those five-minute rounds is up very, very high, very, very low, somewhere in the middle, craziness going on, uncertainty, and it's, it's just a beautiful sport.
It's a really, really beautiful sport.
And, man, it's just really cool to be a part of it.
I would argue like wrestling is the same way, amateur wrestling, college wrestling.
I love it because it built me into the man that I am.
But mixed martial arts on a global platform is just, it's such a beautiful sport because even the guy like you who, you know, Anthony Smith, watching him, and it's just, like we said, he's in there painting a masterpiece of the physical manifestation of the ups, the downs, your greatest opportunities and your darkest hour that you personally feel when you watch him fight.
And maybe he knows you, maybe he doesn't.
Like, obviously, you're a celebrity, but like the average person, the average person who's like, Anthony Smith is my favorite fighter, who Anthony may never, ever meet, but he made that person sitting on his couch in Boughkeepsie, Mississippi, watching the UFC pay-per-view feel something.
Yeah.
It's really freaking cool, man.
It's pretty crazy.
It's powerful.
And you guys have, I mean, you guys, this sport is unlike any other because there's so many moments where it's like, okay, how does he approach the beginning of the fight?
What has his behavior been like going up to the fight?
How is he managing himself in this beginning, like in this kind of capoeira kind of beginning dance, feeling each other out?
Win or lose, how do they then behave?
You know, it's like there's so many moments for people to show every side of humanity.
It's almost, yeah, I think that's why I think there's so many new fans coming to it, too.
It's like, wow, it's not just about the fighting.
There's just so much more to it.
Yeah, it's like kind of what you said, too.
Like, it's almost, it's almost like, of course, the fight is the most entertaining part, but man, think about the walkout.
Think about the, you know, the shaking the hands and the hugging of your teammates and your coaches before you go into battle.
It's literally like Roman times where they were back in the back and they were shaking their hands.
You know, like you see Gladiator with the strength and honor thing before they went out there.
And it's don't not to sound cheesy, but that's a lot different than so many other sports.
This is so much more raw and real.
And Rhonda Rousey said it back in the day on this documentary.
It's on Netflix called The Hurt Business that I was in.
It was a pretty, really cool documentary about fighting.
And she said, whether you love it or you hate it, you're drawn to it.
People are drawn to it because even if we're the most peaceful person in the world, we are somewhat at some level drawn to conflict.
Or we're drawn to sport.
We're drawn to competition.
We're drawn to the contest.
And mixed martial arts is all of that rolled into one.
And like you said, there's so many different aspects of the fight that are outside of just the fight, the buildup.
And then afterwards, whether or not me and you hated, say, we sold it on TV that we hated each other or it was real that we hated each other.
Are we going to shake hands afterwards?
Are we going to hug afterwards?
Are we going to shed tears afterwards?
Like, what's going to happen?
You knock me out.
Do I swallow my pride and say hi, you know, say congratulations or vice versa?
Or there's any one million different scenarios that could manifest themselves and happen inside the cage.
And it's the most unpredictable sport in the world, like being tied onto a tornado every single time.
And that's why people love it.
And that's why I love it.
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Let's go to a question right here.
We got a question from a beautiful young man right here who's been smoking.
Question for Michael Frickin' Chandler.
Hey, man, first off, congrats on the UFC contract.
Congrats on making it to Fight Island, getting to hang out there, making the cut like a professional, like you always have been.
I gotta know, though, I can tell you're a guy that likes to stay in shape.
You're very disciplined, but what's your cheat?
Like, say you go out Friday night or whatever.
What's your cheat meal or like just cheat activity?
What do you like to do whenever you give yourself a day off to just unwind?
I gotta know.
Gang, gang.
Good luck, buddy.
Gang, bro.
Yeah, you ever pull off the side of interstate and have fucking five or six Doritos?
I have some cheats.
I can see you having two cool Ramsey Doritos, individual triangles in your freaking globe.
Only two.
Only two.
No, man.
Like, you know, the most, and I love this question because I think I am one of the guys that people look at and they're just like, man, that dude lives it.
And I do.
But you also have to realize that you're a human being and not a robot.
You know, I'm not a cyborg sent back in time to freaking, you know, fight in a cage.
I'm a question.
Yeah.
Take that question out.
No, but, you know, just a normal person.
So like right now, you know, you're catching me in between.
Like I just got done making weight.
What was it?
Pretty much like 14 days ago.
Yeah, it was exactly 14 days ago.
So for the last two weeks, I've gotten workouts in, five, six workouts.
So like a workout on average every other day, just to give myself, A, some time to heal and B, some time to almost feel lazy, almost feel like a schlub.
Like, you know, like you eat a little bit of crap, you drink some alcoholic beverages.
Like I love taking my wife out, eating some good food, having some drinks, open up a bottle of wine, but I don't feel great afterwards.
And it reminds me why I go into a 12-week training camp where there's no alcohol, there's no bad food.
I'm eating out of Tupperware containers or my MegaFit Meals, which is a food prep company that I use.
And it's all just chicken, lean ground beef, salmon, turkey.
Lamb?
What about a lamb, maybe?
No, not in there.
But I do like lamb.
Lamb's not bad.
My wife makes some good lamb.
And then I just couple that with like three or four vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes.
And that's literally all I eat for 12 weeks straight.
You could shit in the garden and help it out at that point.
Pretty much, you know, like a human compost.
So to answer his question, I love pizza.
I like a thin crust pizza because, man, too much bread gets me.
I'm not a Chicago deep dish type of guy.
I'm actually like a St. Louis style thin crust pizza guy.
True food here in town.
Have you eaten true food?
Yeah, I've been over there.
True food pizza.
A lot of divorcees in there, too.
Looking for that next man.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, you go.
You go in there.
Somebody ordered me.
I was like, I'm eating on there.
Hey, I'm right there.
Good looking one with the mullet.
I'll take him with a side of Chardonnay.
And so True Food Pizza is actually like one of my favorite pizzas.
And then, man, yeah, so that's eat some.
So also getting yourself probably to feel a little bit like it gives you a place to come back from and also rewarding your body probably from what you went through.
I mean, that's very kind of Native American of you in a lot of ways is just rewarding your body, knowing that it's doing things for you.
It does.
And of course, we got to be careful because the food system that we live in, the agricultural system that we live in is not very, it's not as good as our grandparents.
Our green peppers now are not as good as our grandparents' green peppers unless you get them from the right spot, you know, and trying to eat good whole organic foods and whatnot.
So of course, you're doing a little bit of damage by eating the crap, but you're also, A, kind of, kind of rewarding your body, rewarding your mind that, okay, let me take, take the, let me take my foot off the gas a little bit.
Let me be a normal person for a second.
Let me harvest a little body fat and let my body thicken back up into kind of a normal, a normal body.
And then obviously I'll shrink it back down once fight comes.
But I was in training camp essentially from March all the way through October with my last two fights.
And, well, like the fight October 24th, I didn't actually fight, but I appreciate our man there saying making 155 like a professional.
That's why I did it.
You know, I wanted Dana White and the UFC fanbase right away to see who Michael Chandler is.
I'm going to show up.
I'm going to be there on time, on weight.
I've never pulled out of a fight, never said no to a fight.
I've never missed weight.
Show up on the dot.
Who were you most excited?
So say you're there.
I mean, you were there.
And overall, was it a good experience?
Was it pretty crazy going over there?
Had you ever been to the Middle East?
I had not been to the Middle East, but to me, it was just more my first fight week with the UFC.
And it couldn't have been better, man.
It was so awesome.
Obviously, I think a Fight Island fight week is a little bit different than other fight weeks.
So they rolled out the red carpet for us.
They, you know, I was just getting to rub elbows with my new colleagues, my new coworkers, from Dana White all the way down to the person who checks you in at the very beginning, who's kind of new to the UFC.
All of them are the new heartbeats that are in my life.
It's part of my company, who I'm going to, you know, kind of sail off into the rest of my career with, working with.
So I wanted to make a good impression on them, show them who I am, show them.
Did you wear cologne or not?
Be honest.
Cologne?
No.
Axe.
Really?
No, I'm joking.
Do people wear axe anymore?
Sorry.
That would be great if you did.
It'd be awesome.
I'm just wondering.
I got to go check in.
Yeah, totally.
I'm sure there's somebody doing that.
But yeah, I just wonder if you would put on cologne or something.
Yeah, because you're showing up.
You're kind of the new kind of kid in the candy store.
You're also kind of the new candy in the candy store.
I am.
And it's great, too, because I'm not the young kid who got a really sweet spinning back kick knockout from Dana White Contender Series, who's 19 years old.
Right.
I mean, and you can say Sugar Sean O'Malley if you want to.
Oh, yeah.
Actually, actually, that is exactly who he is.
But he came in.
No, it's great.
But yeah, Sean's amazing.
But you don't have that young, you don't, it's not like you have this youthful hype.
You have this long trajectory.
Yeah, and anybody who, the good thing is, and I talked about this the other day, you can't outrun your reputation.
And your reputation takes years to build and seconds to break down and just fall by the wayside.
And I think I have a good reputation in the industry.
And it was great.
It got me in trouble with a lot of the journalists throughout my free agency process because the biggest names in mixed martial arts journalism are like, hey, man, give me some inside information.
Hey, man, let me break the story.
And I'm like, listen, back off.
I'm going to let the UFC do their thing.
whenever it comes out, it's going to come out.
I didn't get into the position that I'm in without being a phenomenal employee.
Be a good employee.
And that's what these young kids miss.
They got to remember, man, you're still an employee.
These guys still sign your paycheck.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
And that was me protecting myself, protecting Bellator before I left Bellator.
That was me protecting the UFC.
That was me protecting the other organizations that I was negotiating with, even though I knew I was going to head in the UFC direction if that door opened itself.
But, you know, I had a good reputation coming into this fight week, and I think I exceeded people's expectations.
I hopefully were like, I had a lot of the UFC reach out to me and say, hey, man, this is great to work with you.
You're easy to work with.
You're eager.
I also just got done talking yesterday to one of the UFC PR people.
I was like, I appreciate you saying that, but you have no idea how underutilized I feel like I've been over the last 10 years.
No offense to Bellator, but they didn't use me enough.
They didn't build me enough.
They didn't give me the outside opportunities to be on the big stages.
I was utilized at about 20%, I believe.
20% was me stepping into the cage, putting on great performances for them, which that's one of the most important parts.
But when it comes to being an athlete, man, microphones, cameras, voice, word of mouth, that's how you build a great platform.
Do you feel like it was any like it was a shun towards you at all?
Or do you just feel like it's just their company the way it is, the size of the company?
You know, like you can only get so big at Kmart, you know, before you walk into Walmart and you're like, damn, you know, they got everything.
100%.
No, I think it's their business model.
They are the legitimate number two organization in the world.
And their business model was, hey, we're going to run a skeleton crew.
We're going to put on the best fights we can.
And we're going to coast and we're going to do our thing.
That's fine, but that's not, it was against the antithesis, against the theos of who I am.
What I am is moving forward, taking chances, investing time, energy, resources to eventually reap the benefits.
And I think that's what Dana White and the UFC have done, man.
You saw it during the pandemic.
Dana White was the first person to get on the microphone and say, we will be back.
We will be the first sport back.
And, you know, guys like, I mean, it was Justin Gaitchie, Tony Ferguson headlined that first card.
And those guys were waiting in the wings.
And I'm over here in Bellator, last fight on my contract, worldwide pandemic, waiting, man, when am I going to get to fight?
And that's when fighting is growing.
I mean, fighting itself was growing at that point.
Like, I started to learn a lot more about Bellator.
Like, Nick Davis is our producer back in LA, and he's a huge degenerate gambler and MMA fan.
But he's always, like, he knows every fighter from top to bottom of every organization.
But he started getting me into different Bellator.
He's like, you got to watch this.
So it's fighting was growing.
And so it is interesting kind of that maybe was Bellator missing some opportunities to grab on some of that market share, even if UFC was the one that was kind of leading it.
100%.
1,000%.
Because even though they're different organizations, and I think Bellator, I think Bellator, of course, they used the coronavirus, the pandemic, which the whole world right now, if you order a t-shirt offline and it takes an extra two weeks, all they got to say is, well, it's COVID.
Oh, that's crazy.
Everything.
It's like we were saying, you could go freaking rear-in somebody.
Be like, oh man, I'm sorry, dude.
COVID and coronavirus.
Coronavirus.
So it's like everybody can use that.
And not to downplay the disease, but people can use coronavirus right now as an excuse for anything.
Oh, I told her I'm using it in erection.
I was like, ah, I got it.
Coronavirus, exactly.
Coronavirus with my penis.
She's like, I'm just nervous about coronavirus if I had it somewhere else.
She was a nice girl, too, actually, man.
She fucking took care of me for like two weeks, hoping it would get better, and it didn't.
I was like, oh, damn.
Maybe it wasn't coronavirus.
She brought you soup.
Yeah, it might just be erectile dysfunction.
So, yeah, it is interesting to see how they haven't maybe haven't picked up a lot of, like, or just haven't grown their own business.
And maybe they have.
I don't know, but you didn't feel like they were.
No, they have.
And they have grown and they've built.
And that was the thing about it.
Like, I was content too.
And I said this.
I knew I was probably going to make a change, but I would have been happy as well getting a really great offer from Bellator and retiring there and doing all that.
And maybe that was true.
Maybe it was just a little bit of negotiation tactic.
But there was part of me that said, man, I cared about those guys.
I cared about building that organization is not who they are without my fights with Eddie Alvarez, Benson Henderson, me losing to Will Brooks, and then losing.
Who was that Pigskin guy you lost to?
What was that guy's name?
Pigskin?
No, what was his nickname?
Punch Dog or something.
Pitbull?
Pitbull.
Pitbull.
Sorry.
Pigsky.
I didn't know who it was.
Exactly.
Did you feel bad?
Did you feel, were you bummed that you didn't get to fight him again before you left?
No, and that's the beautiful thing about it.
I've never really, I'm not about, because to me, it's not the person.
And trust me, there's no more animosity that I've ever had with any of my opponents than him because he's made some baseless claims about me using PEDs and just this kind of silly stuff that has no, there's no.
And he has a brother that does it.
He has like a stunt double or something, like a twin brother?
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
And they're both from Brazil.
If anything, they, you know, probably have dabbled.
And it's like, so I'm not really worried about it.
He's some lazy fucking papaya down there.
Exactly.
So we had some interactions where we don't really like each other.
But to me, I'm like, I don't need to get that one back.
I don't care.
The funny thing is, I'm in a much better position right now getting ready to fight.
I'm one degree of separation away from fighting for UFC title.
I will be UFC champion by July of 2021.
So you think I'm worried about his little self?
And how disgruntled he is?
He's not happy about his contract.
He's not happy about his promotion or where he's at or what he's doing.
He's just an unhappy person.
And he wanted To throw shade at me because he has a scarcity mindset, whereas I have an abundance mindset.
And it's very important to distinguish the two.
A scarcity mindset says, because you are having success, that is going to take away from the success that I could possibly grab because there's a pie and there's only so much of it.
Man, there's an abundance of money, there's an abundance of success, there's an abundance of impact out there for you to grab, and your success does nothing to take away from my success that I'm allowed to have or able to have.
And a lot of people have that.
That's huge, man.
And I've struggled with that in my own success, like getting more successful and then getting scared, you know, operating from a place of fear.
Man, it's very, Man, I've told myself so many stories inside my head where I would just sabotage myself and give myself permission to lose instead of permission to win, permission to be successful.
I grew out of it after college, luckily, but I just underperformed so much in college that I said, man, I got to stop this.
I got to figure something out.
I got to take extreme ownership of what's going on in between these years.
Like you are what you are and where you are because of what is going into your mind and the stories and the myths and the trends that you tell yourself over your 30-year life, your 40-year life, your 15-year-old life, whatever it may be.
And man, you got to kick that in the teeth.
Here's a guy right here who has a question right here.
Hey, Mike and Theo.
It's Aaron from Oklahoma City.
Well, this is a question for both of you, I guess.
Theo, you already have one.
But Mike, would you ever consider growing a Nebraska Nick Warmer?
Damn, he got that work, huh?
That bromade maybe hanging on.
Good, man.
That's nice and did he straighten that?
He may have straightened.
He also may have dyed it a little, which I don't mind.
What did he call it?
Nebraska?
That skunk dip.
I don't know what it is.
What's that called?
He called it the Nebraska.
Nebraska or playing the end of that for us again, Riley?
Yes, Theo, you already have one, but Mike, would you ever consider growing a Nebraska neck warmer?
Nebraska Neck Warmer, baby.
Have you ever tried to increase your flair by doing something wild like that?
Do you ever do a rat tail or something?
I could see you at a rat tail, man.
I could do a rat tail.
No, I haven't really.
I mean, I did have a haircut that was kind of a little edgy.
You know, when that movie, Fury, came out with Brad Pitt?
I don't know.
Brad Pitt, where he's a tank warrior.
He's the tank operator, and he's got like four other guys, three other guys, Shia LaBeouf and some young guy, and Michael Sarah?
Michael Sarah.
Michael Sarah, the skinny little white guy?
Yeah.
No, not him.
Michael Pena.
Oh, the Latino guy?
Yeah, he's awesome.
Greatest haircut of all time, dude.
And you know, he's got freaking, you know, he's got plugs in the front or something where he got a hair hair transplant.
Oh, yeah, I've had that.
Yeah?
I got it.
Did you really?
Yeah.
Got some of the mullet taken out of the back and put into the front, bro.
Does it ever fall out?
Unprecedented.
I don't know.
I don't even know if it ever even came in.
That's the problem.
Your hairline's perfect, though, right?
They put you to sleep and then they, or they don't put you to sleep, but they take it out of the back and they put it into the front.
With a robot?
No.
I have it do them hand by hand.
Some fucking robot back there.
You know what I'm saying?
That's if I have a fucking mustache.
Don't record this right now.
Are you recording it?
I have a mustache in my mind.
I thought about it, man.
Like, I got a freaking receding hairline.
You could do it easy, man.
It's a real easy process.
That's cool.
I thought about trying to find somebody locally that would do it pro bono, you know, just to talk about it.
I mean, everybody's had it done.
There's a place.
There's wegrowhair.com.
Oh, I've seen the billboards.
You've seen the billboards, right?
Tons of billboards.
We grow hair?
That shit sounds big.
It's fucked up.
I'm not trying to find a sharecropper.
I'm trying to find somebody.
See, this is important for our, you know, like our 30, 40 age demographic where it's like, man, you know, a lot of people got some, got some hair.
Like, look at the one, look at Brad Pitt right there in his tuxedo, man.
Like, look at that hairline.
That is absolutely perfect.
Yeah, go click on that.
All Riley, please.
He's from Missouri, man.
Wow.
But anyway, so that was probably the most kind of statement of a haircut I ever made as I kind of did the fury for a little while until my resident hairline started creeping up too much and I was like, ah, man, it's not working anymore.
I got to go with this faux hawk thing.
Yeah, fauxhawk's good, though.
It's longer.
I got to get a haircut.
So, yeah, so that's about as wild as you would go in the hair world.
Yeah, I think so.
I'm going to ask you, let me ask you about, and sorry if Riley seems a little off.
Riley just had his first kiss, actually, the other day.
Kissed a girl for the first time.
Really?
What's her name, man?
Maddie?
Yeah.
Okay.
You like her?
Well, let's just say I did.
You did?
What?
Something happened?
Oh, yeah.
Last night I found out.
That she kissed another guy?
Oh, it was way more than that.
Oh, gosh.
Oh, my God, man.
I'm sorry, dude.
I didn't know that.
And unfortunately, we don't have you on mic today either, Riley.
I'm sorry about that, but man.
Well, you had a first kiss?
Yeah.
Long time ago.
Who was it, bro?
Who was it?
Be honest, dog.
I don't.
I don't remember.
Oh, come on, man.
Brandy.
Your name is Brandy?
With an Eye.
Oh, yeah, bro.
Brandy with an Eye always kiss people, dude.
Brandy with an Eye is the most Missouri.
Is that where you're from, Missouri?
Yeah, Missouri.
Is the most Missouri type of name?
Brandy with an Eye.
Brandy with an Eye lives close to the interstate, bro.
I know that.
Brandy with an Eye.
She used to invite all the rich girls into, she used to invite the rich girls over and they'd ride bikes out and they'd get in fights with the other kids.
The poor kids.
My kind of girl.
Brandy with an eye.
My first one was Chrissy with an eye.
Chrissy, hello.
Chrissy with an eye would come out of the woodwork and her beat up mongoose like, what's up, girl?
You're on the wrong side of the tracks.
What do you say?
Chrissy with an eye, bro.
Christy with an eye.
Damn.
So Riley met it fell apart, huh?
Yeah, it did.
Oh.
So how do you feel about it?
Are you alright?
I'm keeping it together.
Keeping it together?
That's good.
Man.
Well, thanks for being here today, man.
I didn't know that that had happened, and we'll discuss it next time.
And sorry you had to be here to learn about that news as well, Mike.
Yeah, what the heck, man?
But it's not you, man.
It's her, you know?
It's definitely her.
It's her loss, man.
Here's a young fella right here.
That's post Malone, dude.
That could be Post Malone.
Gang gang.
This one's for Mike.
I'm just wondering how long does it take to get that freaking insanely ripped?
Is it something that it's always been with you, or at one point when you started to fight, you know, and do what you're doing in training, did you notice it happening over time?
And if so, how long?
Gang gang.
Gang, brother.
I envision you come out of the womb, you turn around, and then you start doing the ropes exercise with your own umbilical cord.
I like that.
I like that.
No, I think that's pretty much how it happened.
No, I. Who got you into fitness?
I mean, I just, it was a byproduct of what I have to do, you know, and I just truly believe, and I, and I get this all the time.
Like people will see me squatting heavy or bench pressing heavy or doing some dynamic stuff.
And people are like, oh my God, my knees hurt just watching that or my back hurts just watching this.
And I just, I feel for people because I don't know what position they're in or what their background is or how much they have or haven't worked out.
But I truly believe I've wrestled.
I wrestled for 12 years or whatever.
And now I've been fighting now for 11 or whatever it is.
The last 20 years, I've been wrestling and then now fighting.
And I have very few injuries.
And I think a lot of it has to do with, I think there's a genetic component.
There's a luck component.
Of course, I'm never going to act like there isn't.
But lifting weights heavy, external force of adding weights and lifting heavy and bulletproofing your body through strength and conditioning has really made my body very, very dense.
I think my bone density is very, very high.
And I get very few injuries because of strength training.
So I just loved it.
And I realized if I can put in the work in the weight room, it's going to bulletproof my body inside those wrestling matches, inside those wrestling practices, and now inside the mixed martial arts world.
And so I've been doing it since college.
I mean, college, we lifted two, three days a week, heavy, hard, intense, and then we were wrestling six days a week.
So my body just became a machine.
But, you know, to answer his question, it takes me about 12 weeks, you know, to get primed up.
To get completely primed up, you know, to go from, you know, 10%, but I never get above 10% body fat.
And that's one of the things about mixed martial arts.
People are like, oh, he walks around at 198 and cuts down to 155 or 190 and cuts down to 155.
And it's like, yeah, but how fat is he?
How chunky is he?
You know, we can all have a propensity to get chunky and get heavy.
But for me, I keep my weight around 180, 2 to 187 max, usually right around 183 to 185 and 10% body fat, you know, because I just don't like to get that far out of shape.
And then it takes me 12 weeks of discipline to shrink my body a little bit.
Obviously, get rid of a lot of body fat or probably 6%, get down to about 4 or 5, 6% body fat, lose a little bit of muscle, and then get down to 155.
Damn, dude.
I think I ate 10% body fat last night, honestly.
So did I. When you're in Dubai, right?
That's where the fight is.
Abu Dhabi.
Sorry.
When you're in Abu Dhabi.
And it's getting close to fight time.
Did you have an inkling?
Are you getting word from people there that both guys are making the fight?
Like, are you, is there a point where it starts to feel like, okay, I might actually be a real substitute?
And then it goes from, okay, this is, I'm just going to be here.
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't until the day before Weigh-Ins that my manager even kind of asked, you know, and then even then the UFC was essentially like, well, I would imagine, you know, by the morning after the morning after Weyans, the day at the morning of the fight, by the time that we get word that Habib and Gachi both passed their COVID test and they're negative, you know, you should be pretty good to go.
And then they were like, well, but actually, what if they get hurt on the way to the arena?
It was one of those deals where I was essentially just the backup all the way until those guys stepped into the cage.
At that point, I, you know, had pizza for lunch because, I mean, what was I going to do?
Like, just continue to eat chicken and broccoli all the way till 9 p.m.
And at that point, you kind of just look foolish.
Like, you're just going to hang out outside of the ring going like this.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And it's one of those things, too, where it's like, it would be an even better story.
I also, like, of course, we joked with my manager.
My manager, longtime manager, Randall Alleman was there, who I'm good friends with, but he also handles my stuff.
So we were there and it was like, maybe we should just, you know, go like have a celebratory beer or celebratory, you know, drink before this and be like, well, yeah, but what if I get the call?
Joking and be like, well, it would kind of be a cool, even better story.
Great story.
Even better story.
I got the call while, you know, they just poured a Stella or something, you know, and I'm eating a pizza.
Chandler beat Khabiba after two Mai Ties.
You know, like, so I didn't end up having an alcoholic beverage that day until after the fights were over or whatever, but it would have been, we were just joking, like it would have been an even better story.
Sorry, go ahead.
And in some ways, it would probably make me fight even better because I'd be like, I got nothing to lose for short because I just had, you know, two Mai Ties and a and some of the.
You can tell the bar trend receipt in your short.
Who would you, was there a rather where you're like, if you started to think like, who would I rather fight?
My answer to that is I would love the idea of fighting both of them, but at that point, you have to fight Khabib just because he's the number one guy.
Oh, wow, really?
Yeah, because if you're going to fight, I mean, yeah, it would be better to have a 12-week training camp focused just on Habib, obviously, when you have the opportunity of a lifetime to beat an undefeated fighter, the best fighter in lightweight history, and get the world title.
But for me, you got to take the opportunities when you can.
They don't just hand out UFC title fights like it's nothing.
So for me, it would have been Habib just because I would have had the opportunity to capture the belt that night.
And a fight with me and Justin Gage is going to happen.
Just like I said, a fight with me and Poya is going to happen.
These fights are going to happen.
So if you had the opportunity, and I knew, we all knew Habib.
We didn't know he was going to retire that night, or at least say he's going to retire.
We don't know yet.
But I thought for sure he's going to have one, maybe two fights left in him.
So I want to get that fight before he retires.
I would not want to get that fight.
But that's different mindsets, man.
Now, when you're there and you're in that environment, is there a level of royalty that kind of proceeds and Surrounds Khabib that doesn't surround anybody else in a way?
No.
Yeah, I'm not really.
Not that you're thinking of, but do you feel?
Is there anything like that in the air?
No, I'm just wondering.
Well, he wasn't there that much, to be honest with you.
Like, I saw Justin Gacci a couple times.
His mom and dad were there.
His brothers, his brother looks just like him.
They're all from Arizona.
They're kind of doing their thing.
Man, me and Justin Gaetchy are very similar, man.
Small town, blue-collar, wrestling families.
Like, that's, it looked like my family walking around if we were in Abu Dhabi at a hotel somewhere.
So he was there.
He was present and he was seen a lot.
Had a couple conversations with him or his team or whatever.
Habib was nowhere to be found.
Habib had like his own training facility.
He had his own hotel.
He had his own everything.
He showed up in armored cars and motorcades and helicopters and all kinds of stuff.
So he is like royalty over there because it's the Middle East.
It's close to Russia.
He's Muslim.
So he's like royalty.
So there is, but for me, as a red, white, and blue-blooded American, I'm like, this is silly man.
It's like, whatever.
But you got to respect it.
Now, I don't want that to come off like I don't respect him.
Like, I respect him a ton as a competitor inside the cage, what he's done, his accomplishments, plus winning his last fight after the loss of his father and all that kind of stuff.
I respect the heck out of him for that.
But for the most part, it was like, it's just like, all right, bro.
And he showed up.
He looked like a skeleton at weigh-ins.
He looked like it was questionable whether he even made weight.
Wow.
You know, you're just like, dude, be a professional.
Make the weight.
Show up with your chest puffed out and a smile on your face.
Do your job.
Yeah, there's a video where it says it looks like they didn't even check his weight, kind of.
Supposedly they did.
Did you – I mean, does that seem normal to you?
At the hotel, I had to step on the scale, and I weighed 154.9.
And then they said, okay, you can get on the bus.
So if I was 155.2 or whatever there, they might have been like, no, you know, you can't get on the bus until you cut the weight.
Then again, maybe Habib was like, I'm right at 155.1.
By the time I get over there, I can float 0.1.
Maybe the scale, it's a lot of times your balance scales, you know, those old school balance scales are a little bit more lenient than your digital scale because a digital scale will tell you point boom, whatever it is.
The balance scale, all they have to do is have a little bit of daylight and you're technically in there.
So there's almost like a 0.2 swing.
But yeah, I mean, he stepped on the scale.
It was going up.
They swiped it.
But it's, you know, it's a conspiracy theory.
I mean, it's, it's, man, they've been doing this for 26, 27 years.
You know, there hasn't been many controversies.
So whatever.
It wasn't meant to be for me to step inside the cage tonight.
Nor would I have.
If Khabib didn't make weight at that moment, he would have got time to cut weight anyway.
So I wasn't worried about it.
Here's a question right here from a young fella right here.
What up, Theo?
It's your boy Brody from Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Coming with a question for Michael Chandler.
How do you keep your head held high after an ass whipping?
That's something I want to know.
Gang, baby, love you.
Love you too, bro.
Well, I know it's for Michael, but I'll tell you, I remember when I was in school, I've told this story before, but some kid beat my ass, right?
Which is easy to do.
If I was somebody else, I would beat my ass.
You know what I'm saying, bro?
So don't take a lot of clout out of it, you know?
Like, easy, dude.
It was easy to beat my ass.
But afterwards at school, they made us stand in the hall.
Me and the kid to beat my ass and put our arms on each other's shoulders.
And we had to stand like that all day in the hall.
So then, like, I ended up becoming friends with the guy.
He's still a friend of mine today, this kid Brad Castleman, great guy.
No way.
Yeah, and it wasn't that good of him.
I let him hit me a couple, first three or four times.
I let him hit me, dude.
And then I fell down, bro.
That was my.
So you didn't get in trouble.
You just had to do that?
We had to do that.
That's cool, dude.
But it was interesting because by the end of the day, we were friends, dude.
You're like, well, we got to sit.
So, man, so what do you like to do for fun?
Totally, bro.
That was it, bro.
Like, I know I hated you this morning, but like, dude, I really hate Brad.
I really hate Joe.
You know, like, yeah, let's go fuck him.
We should go fight Joe, man.
Bro, come over.
I'll invite you over this weekend.
I got a rich kid coming over.
He's coming over in his real shiny yellow horror with the gyro on the front and pegs.
Yeah, in his duckhead freaking shirt and shorts.
That's a good question, though.
How do you maintain some composure and keep your head up after a loss?
Man, I think kind of like what we were talking earlier is it's all about the process, too.
Whenever you realize that the journey is really the process, the process is the goal.
The journey is the goal.
Realizing that you're going to have wins, you're going to have losses.
And I realized over the last couple of years, and it took me a while to realize this, that every single person that I've ever looked up to, whether I know them or they're some sports figure, some icon, I'm like, man, that person, I respect them.
They all have losses in their past.
They've all have ups.
They all have downs.
Every single person you've ever looked up to who has at one point or another been a failure, failure of a competition, failure, a failure of something.
So when you realize like my next fight, I might lose.
I don't know.
But don't be afraid of the loss.
Don't be afraid of it.
But when I have lost, for me, it's the beauty of it being the most embarrassing, one of the most embarrassing moments of your life.
Because it's not like you lost a baseball game.
It's not like you lost a football game and you just lost a fight.
You just got bested by another individual who is getting their hand raised while you have to hang your head and collect half a paycheck and go home and lick your wounds.
But I think it's just, once again, realizing that losses are part of the journey.
Lick your wounds.
Get around the most important people in your life.
Be around the people that love you.
Be around the people that believe in you.
Be around the people that love you, whether you win or lose.
Make sure you stay built up.
And then take notes on how you can get better, how you can become a better man, competitor, woman, whatever it may be.
Wow.
Man, dude, I wish you lived in my head, bro.
That would be helpful.
Well, we live in the same city now.
It's a good point, dude.
It's close, man.
It's getting closer.
Pretty close.
It's definitely getting closer.
Here's a question right here that we have from a young man.
What up, Theo gang, brother?
What up, Michael?
Hope you're doing well.
Hope your brain works all right.
Mine doesn't, You know, nine concussions and whatnot, but I imagine you feel similar sometimes.
Anyways, I was wondering: someone who's like just getting into fighting and stuff and like wanting to have that ability of true self-defense, not just swinging and wailing.
If all I'm doing is watching these videos, right, and not going to any classes or anything like that, what would you say is the number one thing to pay attention to, some of the takeaways that someone who is overall like a YouTube type learner, what can I do to take away from actual legitimate professional fights that would help me if I were to get in some sort of, you know, scrap of dapple out here on these streets?
Because it gets tough out here in the Central East sometimes.
Amen, bro.
You know.
So, yeah, man, just wondering what some of that advice might be.
I love what you guys do.
Keep it up.
Theo, you the man.
Gang, gang, brother.
Let's keep rolling.
Amen.
Let's keep rolling, man.
That's a good question, man, because a lot of net bangers out there, they call them on food's going wild.
They call them net bangers, and it just means like people that are just doing stuff only on the net, not in real time.
But that's a great question, man.
Non-concussions, damn, bro.
I'm fucking thinking with a Rubik's Cube at that point.
No offense, bud.
But yeah, that's a great question, Michael.
What do you got?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people, and you've talked about it.
There's a lot of people learning things through YouTube these days.
But I mean, when you're watching fights, whether it's, you know, hopefully it's professional fights, you know, so you're learning from professionals, if you will.
Man, defense is underrated.
You know, keep your hands up.
Watch how in a fight, people use the distance and the timing.
A lot of times, it's not necessarily the biggest punch that lands, the one that they see coming.
It's the one that they don't see coming because you timed it perfectly.
So when you watch some of these crazy knockouts where a guy's looking at you this way, expecting you to throw that jab, but the hook comes here and hits them in the chin from almost a side, the side, you know, the distance, the timing, defense, and then the space between the two, the spatial awareness of the fighters, whether they're going in for a takedown and then throwing an uppercut or looking like they're going to throw a head strike and then go for the takedown.
I mean, obviously, I don't know if my man's looking to get into mixed martial arts fighting in professional rings or if he's just, like he said, you know, in the streets.
I guess he was saying in the streets, just have a little bit of self-defense.
But can you learn from YouTube or do you have to get out there and practice?
I think fighting, you need to be, that's something you need to be there in the physical, like in person, I would say.
You know, like, obviously, you know, you can.
Well, you can't watch some shit on your phone and then go fight.
I mean, it's going to be harder.
It is.
I mean, obviously, there's something to be said for fighters like myself who I watch film and then I can like almost learn through osmosis and say, man, okay, in my next sparring session, I'm going to try this.
But without that sparring session, it was just, you know, and it's also real time.
It's fast.
The craziest thing about fighting is it's just so fast.
You have constantly reaction time.
And you only get that reaction time through 10,000 hours of repetition and getting after it.
So you got to be there in the physical form.
I don't know if they're in the Central East, if his MMA gyms are open now because of the pandemic, but man, get somewhere and get some drills in.
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So when you see like the fight between Dustin and Connor is supposed to happen, right?
Is there a preference?
And I watched you the other day.
You were talking about like a top 10 guys and kind of rating the top 10, just sharing your thoughts on them, you know?
I thought it was really real eloquent about it and shared some nice thoughts about all the guys.
Is there like a fight that you really want?
Is there a fight that you does it change day to day, week to week?
Like a month ago, if I'd have asked you, was it a different person than today?
So a month ago, if you would have asked me, I would have said, you know, it's Tony Ferguson.
But then after Habib was talking about retiring and then Justin Gaetchy was talking about fighting within six to eight weeks, and then also Connor and Poirier were talking about fighting at 170.
Dana White has made it very clear if those guys are fighting at 170, they're not going to be, you know, they obviously aren't going to be getting a title shot, you know, anytime soon.
As soon as Habib retired, you know, I was like, hey, man, I'll fight Justin Gaetchy next week for the title, six weeks from now, November, December.
Fuck, I'll fight him at the breakfast of the fan.
Yeah, I'll fight him next tomorrow morning before the plane takes off.
Let's just keep the octagon set up.
Let's go.
So that was then.
So at that point, you're like, yeah, so Khabib's retired.
That kind of changed things.
It changed things.
And I said, hey, I'll fight Dustin or I'll fight Tony or Gaetchy for whether it's a number one contender spot or whether it's for the title.
Because you had Connor and Poirier talking about fighting 170.
So they were almost out of the discussion.
Still, right now, you have Connor and Poirier.
It looks like it's almost done.
It looks like they're going to be fighting in 155.
So those two are booked.
You got Gaetchy, who just fought, so chances are he might want a little bit of time off.
So I think Tony Ferguson.
I say Tony Ferguson for two reasons.
Number one, he makes the most sense because he's been the guy who sat out the longest.
And secondly, if I do think Habib is coming back, I would say he's beaten Connor.
Habib has beaten Connor.
He's beaten Poirier.
He's beaten Gaetchy now.
And the only fight left out there for him was the Ferguson fight.
But if I beat Ferguson, I leapfrog Ferguson.
And now you get Chandler Habib for his 30-0 fight or 29-1 fight instead of Tony Ferguson.
So that kind of gives me the best option to win, leapfrog him, fight a top five guy, and be the most appealing matchup, the most challenging matchup for Habit or Magamadov.
Was it disappointing when – You guys had some exchange about it, right?
We did exchange a little bit.
And then even he commented on one of my Instagram posts, like, train hard, see you soon.
You know, he's such a unique guy.
He's such like a anomaly kind of.
He's an anomaly.
He's a unique guy.
You don't know what he's going to say.
And then you also don't know what he's going to do inside the cage.
So it's wild.
And it's just like, I think it's a perfect, it's a fight that scares me.
So it's a fight that's great.
It's great for me.
It's great introduction for me.
So he's a top five guy.
He's a scary guy.
He was 12-0 before, or he was on a 12-fight win streak before he lost his last fight.
We can't forget that.
He's still one of the most dangerous guys in the division.
Definitely the most unpredictable guy in the division.
And how quickly that gets forgotten after the Gatesi fight?
So quickly.
I mean, how quickly, suddenly he's like, he seems like there's this, you know, yeah, he's not the same guy.
Exactly.
And granted, he took a lot of damage in that fight, but still, man, like, we all take damage, you know, we all win or lose, we take damage, you know?
So it's just, it is a very much, and that's the hardest thing about it, but I think it's also the most beautiful thing about it because some of the fans do realize what us fighters have to go through.
Like that our head is on the chopping block essentially every single time we fight, where it's like, man, it's a what have you done for me lately business.
But going back to like you were talking about Poirier, it's like, it's cool to see his, he's become a hero, win or lose.
He's been one of those guys who are going to come in if he wins.
People love him.
If he loses, people are rooting for him, wanting him to pick himself back up and get back in the win column.
And I looked at myself that kind of same way.
I'm going to come into the UFC.
No matter what, I might have five fights left in me, 12 fights left in me.
But either way, there's a bunch of big fights out there for me to just have a blast, to be put on this awesome platform.
Who knows?
I could go 500 the next six fights.
I could go 8-0 my next eight fights.
I could win the title and hold it for 10 years.
I don't know.
So we'll see.
It's wild, man.
It's crazy sports.
And it's amazing.
Really, that 155 is, I mean, it's really almost the bet.
I mean, is there any division that has that much, that many individual guys who have so much, just like you're saying, they can all fight, they could all stay in the top 10 for the next five, 10 years.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Not when it comes to divisions.
You know, you got your individual guys, and then you got a guy like Israel Adesanya, who's who fights at 185.
Now he's going up to fight for the title at 205.
And John Jones just left 205, went to heavyweight, as Adesanya's talking about going up to heavyweight.
So that right there kind of shows you that there's not a ton of depth in some of these.
And I don't say that like there's still it's sometimes the depth, sometimes it looks like there's a lack of depth because the champion has beaten all the number one contenders, similar to like kind of how Khabib has done.
And Jones too.
Jones was nobody left from really.
He was fighting guys two and three times.
Exactly.
But you look at all the guys that Jones fought.
And if Jones, if we take Jones out of the picture and he retired tomorrow like Khabib did, you immediately start looking at Dominic Reyes and John Blavhovich and the guy with the Thor hammer on his chest.
He fights this weekend.
Santos, Tiago Santos, you know, just a ton of big-name guys, you know, so it's big-name guys, but they looked not that great against a guy like John Jones, you know.
So Alexander Gustafson, if you like.
Yeah, I love him.
Exactly.
So, but man, look at the lightweight division.
Connor is the anchor.
He's the biggest name, obviously.
You got me, the new guy who came in, who came in right at the right time.
Tony Ferguson, who's a household name.
Poiria, who's a household name.
Justin Gaetchy, who is a household name.
I mean, you've got thrown in.
I mean, you suddenly like, does it feel a lot different being Michael Chandler two months ago, who was in just, you know, in the, not the XFL, because it's certainly a lot bigger than that.
That's a shitty comparison, but.
It's similar.
I mean, it's not the NFL, you know?
Right, yeah.
Being adjacent, right?
Being UFC adjacent to suddenly, I mean, this is, you know, it's, it's, I mean, it's definitely like, it's like puts you in a star spot in a way, you know?
It is.
It's cool.
And a lot of it or some of it had to do with the way that I came over and the, I guess even, even I did Bruce Buffer's podcast and he's like, hey, he's like, Michael, you know, exactly.
It's time podcast.
Bruce Buffer was like, hey, you know, I've been with the UFC now for 25 years and I'm hard pressed to racking my brain trying to think of another free agent that came over and got this much splash and this much momentum.
And part of that is great, but part of that also, you know, kind of exposes you to some hate too, because people are like, who's this guy think he is, man?
Why is the UFC, why are they force-feeding us Michael Chandler guy?
Who's this pretty boy, too?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, that's part of it, too.
They're like, this guy doesn't look good.
Who's this handsome guy?
Who's this lifeguard?
I read one comment.
Who's this lifeguard?
Lifeguard.
Exactly.
I'm like, dang, man, I know.
But it's like to do that.
Do you even know TPR?
No, I don't.
Unbelievable.
Exactly, man.
I can't even swim.
It's like, you know, but the good thing is I will get into the Octagon soon and people will realize, okay, he's not just a bodyguard, lifeguard looking dude, whatever, and bodybuilder.
Someone called me a fitness model because the UFC took some photos of me on the beach and I'm like, what am I supposed to do, man?
I'm out here on Fight Island.
I'm probably not going to fight.
Let me do something.
So it's one of them deals where, you know, just do a little bit of research, look up my fights on YouTube.
Yeah, I've lost, but I've also won.
I've won in dominant fashion.
You'll see the passion that I bring to the cage, bring to that, and I will bring to the octagon.
So it's feels much bigger.
A lot of people, this is their first introduction to your name.
Exactly.
So it does, and it does feel much bigger.
It does, you know, the numbers are growing.
The notoriety is growing.
And in a lot of ways, it inspires me and motivates me to be better, to work even harder, to build even more.
Because like I said, it wasn't enough for me to just put on the UFC gloves and put on the UFC fight kit and take the photos in front of the UFC green screen and get on the UFC broadcast.
Like, man, I want to get inside that octagon and I want to fight and I want to prove, not prove, I want to show the people who I am.
Win, lose, or draw, that's going to take care of itself.
But the passion that I bring to the octagon, the preparation and the manner in which I prepare myself is all going to stay the same, if not be even more increased right now.
And I'm excited for the opportunity.
How big is that white chair there in Abu Dhabi?
The white chair?
Yeah, that big white chair at the UFC thing.
Isn't there like a big white chair out there that people were sitting in?
In the W?
At the hotel in Abu Dhabi?
at the UFC ring, at the ring out there.
You didn't?
I've just seen pictures of people sitting in one.
Did you see the picture?
Was it like a wooden white chair on the beach?
On the beach?
Yeah, it looks real big.
It is big.
It is?
It's really big and it's really deep because I was like trying to lean back and I couldn't.
I got short legs.
Don't tell anybody.
I got some short legs.
Don't say anything, man.
I mean, I've watched a lot of hours of footage of you.
I got some freaking short legs.
You can tell they're not extremely long.
I mean, we have a big couch in my house, too.
I was like, gosh, dang, I hate these long couches, man, because if I get my low back up against the back of the couch, my little feet dangle.
You know?
Like you're waiting for Christmas morning.
I'm like, oh, I'm so excited.
Mom and Dad, you know.
is there a fighter you think that, that would, that doesn't want to fight you in that, in that top group?
It's like, and you're coming from a different place where, I mean, I'm sure all the guys are familiar with you for sure, but it's not what they've been looking at.
It's not their, you know, when they're looking at their top 10, it's not what they've been looking at.
The problem with mixed martial arts is, not the problem, it's just the nature of mixed martial arts is everybody's tough to some degree.
Then there's some really, then there's some really, really tough guys who don't have that big of names.
And then there's some really, really big names who aren't that tough.
So there's this kind of paradigm shift between the two polar opposites of, you know, like a guy like Conor McGregor.
I would say his name is bigger than his fight skills.
But his fight skills are way up there, but his name is way bigger just because he's such a big superstar.
But then he got a guy like myself who my fight skills much, much supersede my, my, my name status in the game because I've been outside the UFC for so long.
And that's not me comparing my skill against Connor.
I think we'd match up well together, whatever.
But Connor or Poirier and Ferguson were both offered to fight me October 24th.
They both turned it down for their different reasons.
And they both brought up money or they both brought up, whether it's timeline or maybe they wanted to fight each other.
They talked about standing up for each other.
And then Poirier got the Connor fight or whatever.
So it was all an interesting thing.
But I think I'm a dark horse of the division because people don't really want to fight me because there's not a lot of upside to fighting me.
You could fight another guy in the top 10 who's in the UFC who is a household name.
I'll say Charles Charles Oliveira.
He's on a long fight wins track.
He's a gangster.
Yeah, he's good.
He's got some wins.
He's been in the UFC for a while.
Would you fight him?
I would fight anybody, but when I already have the opportunity to fight a top five guy, and I've been told I was going to get a top five guy right away, Poirier or Ferguson, why would I ever think about...
Khabib's training partner freaking, everybody wanted me to fight him because his opponent, Rafael Dosanos, got COVID and fell off the card.
So everybody was like, oh, yeah, I should fight him.
I'm like, why am I going to fight number 12 when I already basically have a name on a contract that's in the top five?
I'm going to get a top five guy right away.
I'm sorry if that makes people feel a certain way.
I'm sorry if the fans think that I'm entitled or I'm sorry if the fans think that I don't deserve it.
Maybe I do.
Maybe I don't.
It's the UFC's decision.
Let me step into the cage.
Let me freaking get butt-whipped or let me prove to you guys that I deserve to be in the top five.
Either way, we'll know pretty soon.
Man, a lot of it, you just got to wait to get in there every time, huh?
Yeah.
Well, that's the problem.
That's the problem with mixed martial arts, man, is wrestling was great because if I lost, it was 48 hours, 72 hours, three, four days until I got to get back in the win column and get a win if I had the opportunity.
Mixed martial arts, man, if I lose, it takes me four or five, six months to get a win.
And that's why that time between fights, and that's why I went into a hole, man.
I lost three fights in a row, 688 days without a win back when I lost my first fight ever to Eddie Alvarez.
Very close, razor-thin split decision.
Lost my next two fights because I just wasn't prepared mentally to lose, A. And then when I did lose, it took me so long to get to my next competition that I self-sabotaged or didn't build myself up enough and told myself the lies that I wasn't as good as I thought I was.
My doubters were correct and all that kind of stuff.
What a journey to come back from because especially when that's your first fight.
First fight that I lost, and then it was just like, man, I can't, I'm not who I thought I was.
They were right.
The naysayers were right.
The media who didn't believe in me was right, you know, and then I just lost through.
And that, you know, someday when I write a book, it'll be called 688 Days talking about, you know.
And Eddie Alvarez is a gangster.
Is there a guy?
God, he's such a...
Is there a guy out there when you're fighting them, when they, who's the craziest look-in-the-eye person you've ever seen?
And it has nothing to do with their fighting skills or anything, but who have you ever gotten in the ring with?
And you're like, Jesus Christ, this guy is missing a little bit of something?
For me, I think there's this guy named Dave Rickles who I fought twice, who's he had a, he has a really pretty good career.
He actually went over to bare knuckle fighting, so that'll show you.
Wow.
You got to kind of have a screw loose to go to that place and fight freaking bare knuckle, right?
But man, he was just, he had this look in his eyes.
He was a little nuts.
He was a little crazy.
He's the kind of guy who would carry, like, he was Caveman was his name.
So he'd wear a Barney Rubble Flintstones thing to the cage.
He'd carry a big old club like Barney Flibbed Flintstone.
One time they wheeled him out in a coffin.
He opened himself up, pulled himself out of the coffin, and got out of there.
He was a true showman, but he was also kind of a little bit nuts, you know.
He was probably one of the craziest guys I ever fought.
Are you noticing over the time more of that wrestling kind of flair get into fighting as well?
Or has it gotten less as your career has gotten into bigger fights and more higher purse fights and stuff?
And you, you know, just more professional.
Is there more of that at a lower level?
Or do you think there's just more of that coming into the sport everywhere?
I think there was the Conor McGregor era that said, okay, I need a trash talk.
I need Gucci sunglasses.
I need Gucci flip-flops.
I need a real or fake good-looking watch.
I don't care if it's fake.
I just want people to think I got money.
I got to talk.
I got to wear certain things.
I think Connor came in and it worked for Connor.
Connor McGregor is an anomaly.
He is great on the mic.
He is well read.
He's well rehearsed.
You're crazy if you don't think that a lot of the stuff Connor has said on this microphone wasn't rehearsed in the back, in his room before he's going to bed at night.
He's just rehearsing different things.
And so I think when I first got into sport, there was almost none of it.
Then Connor came in.
I think a lot of people started trying to look high class, nice cars, and this, that, and the other thing, which that's also just Instagram models.
There's so many of them out there.
So we're also in the age of Instagram.
But I also think the tide is now shifting towards the respectful, honorable warriors.
I mean, look at our division.
I mean, like, Poirier is one of the most respectable guys ever.
Connor punched a guy, punched an old man in an Irish whiskey bar, and then like his next fight was like he apologized and he had his hair slicked back, beat up Cowboy Seroni, but it was a nice, he's trying to play the respectable card, realizing like, man, I don't want to keep carrying around this heaviness.
It's a lot of heaviness to have a lot of animosity in your life, you know, man.
Like you can have certain spats with people.
Like if you're not on good terms with people, man, like you don't need enemies in life.
It sucks.
So for anybody who's listening right now, if you've got toxic people in your life, now imagine taking that and having a toxic relationship between you and the guy that you're fighting.
How would you perform when you have that?
Some people do well with it.
Some people do really bad with it.
I personally do really bad with it.
Bellator tried to build up this big animosity thing between me and Pitbull.
And I'm not saying I lost because of it, but I didn't feel myself going into that fight.
That's interesting.
So to answer your question, I think the sport is moving towards the more respectable.
And I'll tell you right now, had a conversation with Dana White on Fight Island.
He told me, hey, kid, keep doing exactly what you're doing.
We're getting a ton of great feedback from the UFC staff, from the UFC fans, from all the social media pages, from all the content, all the stuff.
Like people, you are resonating with the fan base, with the audience.
And I'm the kind of guy where I'm just going to be respectful.
Hey, I have honor in the sport, integrity in my life, high character, high reputation.
And it's always worked out well for me.
Could I have sold some more tickets and made some more money by cussing, spitting, fighting a little bit more?
Maybe.
But I wouldn't have felt better.
I wouldn't have felt doing it.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Maybe not.
Let's get this question right here, man.
You might be about to finish up.
What do we have here, Riley?
What's up, Theo?
What's up, Michael?
This is Quincy coming at you from the great state of Texas.
My question for Michael Chandler being, just lay out for me what your dream career in the UFC is.
When a lot of guys get here, they think, you know, hey, I want the money fights, you know, I want to do the Connor gig, or, you know, I just want to chase glory.
I just want a legacy.
I want a name.
You know, I want that championship.
So just lay out what's your ideal career with the UFC and where do you see it going?
Gang, gang.
Gang, bro.
Gang gang.
Yeah, because that belt's back in play now, man.
It is.
That's a good question, man, because it's good because it's like, what's the philosophy of why I made the decision?
You know, just to give a little context, I left the relative surety of easier fights and good money in Bellator, good contract in Bellator, comfortability of being the big fish, little pond, and being kind of the poster boy for an organization to essentially come over to the UFC, ask to get thrown to the sharks, thrown to the wolves right away, and see what happens.
So to answer that question, I think a guy like Gaitchy or Tony Ferguson fighting and showing the fans who I am, win that fight, fight exactly the way that I fight, prove to the fans, okay, this guy's here to stay.
This guy's a legit contender for the lightweight belt, and then fight for the belt, whether it's Habib or whether it's Conor Poirier, whether I'm the number one contender after beating one of those guys, and then Connor Poirier is the number one contender.
We fight for the title sometime middle of 2021.
And then after that, just defend the belt and get the big fights.
And a crown.
They should put a crown on you guys.
That would be sweet, man.
Crown would be cool.
Or like a medal, like an Olympic gold medal.
Crown would be cool.
But keep going, sorry.
Oh, no, but then you'll get a crown, hopefully.
Like I said, defend the belt a few times.
Defend the belt a few times.
And then for me, I don't say get the big fights just for the money, but you get the big fights because that's how you get the attention.
It's like the Gary Vee approach of capturing as much attention as possible.
If you don't have people's attention or you can't get people's attention, they won't pay attention to you.
And they won't, you know, life is all about who knows you, who trusts you, and then who's going to buy what you're selling, not just money-wise, not just buying products, but buy what you're selling.
Like what kind of motivation are you selling people?
What kind of character are you selling people?
What kind of theos are you selling to the people so that you can reach the masses?
And for me, it's all about touching as many people as I possibly can through this platform that I've been given, touching every walk of life, every corner of the globe, hopefully.
And so winning the world title and then getting big fights, either defending the belt or the BMF belt or the big, you know, the big fights with the big name guys to get as much attention and eyeballs on me, not for the ego of it, but for the platform of it.
Yeah, that platform, yeah, that's a good point.
Once people know you, then you can do stuff with it.
Yeah, I mean, and that's really what it is because it's a catch-22, and it's like, oh, he just did that for attention.
And it's like, yeah, as long as you don't ever sacrifice your morals or your character, it's okay to do things for attention.
I came over to the UFC essentially for attention.
I came over to the UFC for competition.
Competition and attention.
Those are two things that I get from the UFC that I couldn't, not that I wasn't getting a bellator, but I get more in the UFC.
So it's okay to want more attention, especially if you've done things to earn it.
Was there a time previous that you were going to come to the UFC and it didn't work out?
Or was there, how long is this?
I mean, how long is this whole combo going on?
Is it one of those ongoing conversations for like a decade?
What is it like?
So it's one of those deals where I never actually became a free agent.
There was some reports out there that Chandler's a free agent.
He's, you know, he's going to, you know, but I ever, I actually, you know, two years ago and four years ago was on the last fight on my contract, ended up re-signing with Bellator with the one fight left on my contract.
So I was never a free agent until August of 2020.
And it just seemed like the right time this time.
Back then, because it also depended on what the UFC Lightweight Division looked like, too.
You know, two years ago, the landscape looked a lot different.
You had Habib as the champion.
You had Connor off doing $100 million fights with Floyd Mayweather.
He could come back, leapfrog me whenever.
You had Poirier coming in.
One of those guys had an interim title two years ago.
It was either Tony or it wasn't Poirier because I think Poiri was after that.
Maybe it was Tony.
I think Tony had an interim title.
Habib had the title.
Habib wasn't coming back necessarily.
So it was just a weird time.
Soap opera.
It was a weird time for me to come in.
Now exactly what we thought.
Now it's perfect two years later.
I'm coming in at this time, which couldn't have been even more.
So two years ago, and I said this to Dana when I spoke to him, I said, listen, two years ago, four years ago, I wouldn't have been the guy that you needed to be to come in and be the champion and be the superstar of this division.
And I truly believe that I'm going to be that.
And I don't say that in a cocky, I don't say that in a cocky way.
I just believe like I want.
You got to believe it.
I just believe that that's what's going to happen.
And maybe there's going to be some people that laugh at me and I fall flat on my face and that's fine, but at least I find out.
That's how I feel in my heart right now.
And you can't knock a man for how he feels in his heart.
A man who hitches his dream to a star, that's the only way you can go out and create impact in your life and do amazing things.
So that's what I'm doing.
And man, it's been cool, but I never became a free agent until just this year.
And it just never seemed like the right time to become a free agent until this year.
Damn.
So it worked out perfect.
Well, I'm inspired.
How do you feel, Riley?
I loved every minute of it.
Come on, Riley.
I like that, man.
Yeah.
You're great.
Thanks, man.
Did it make you feel better about the girl?
Hey, there are so many fish in the sea, man.
I didn't even meet my wife until I was like 27 years old.
Yeah?
Where'd you meet her at?
Dude, that's a funny story.
Crazy story.
Actually, this tooth right here, I chipped it, like broke it in half in college.
My buddy Justin Cole jumped off the side of the pool, jumped on me, bit it down, broke it.
But I told them that I did it in wrestling, so they sent me to this Mizzou.
A casual movie.
I know.
They sent it to my.
Yeah, come on, dude.
They sent me to the Mizzou dentist, the guy who did all the dentist stuff.
His name was Kent Willett.
I knew who he was because he was a Bible study leader of my Bible study leader.
He had a great, great reputation in town.
And I was looking at these pictures of him.
I'm like, man, who's this cute little brunette girl?
And all these family pictures of him.
It must be his daughter.
And he's awesome.
I like him.
And I don't even know him.
If she's half as good as she must be by being his daughter, she must be awesome.
He fixes my tooth.
I don't say anything, but I start looking her up on Facebook and just freaking fall in love with her.
Yeah, I've been there before.
Yeah, right.
And then a couple, a couple weeks later, I join a Bible study and they start talking about this Brie Willett girl.
That was her name, Brie Willett.
I'm like, man, that's that freaking girl, man.
Like, I love that girl.
And I hear them talking, I'm just like kind of listening.
I'm like, oh, so she goes to school here.
Like, is she cool?
What path does she take to walk?
Exactly.
Yeah.
No, well, she wasn't into town.
She was out of town.
She was a couple hours away in Indiana.
But luckily through Facebook, I think I friend requested her.
She said yes, because I had some friends that she respected and were like, well, if he's friends with these guys, he must be all right.
Ends up being five years later till I finally freaking sent her a Facebook message.
I'm like, hey, how are things?
I kind of acted like I knew her.
And she, you know, she responded.
We talked for a couple months.
She said, hey, I'm doing residencies or I'm applying for residencies.
I'm getting off here.
Here's my email.
So we emailed back and forth for almost two years.
She would wait like four, five, six months to respond to me.
I would email her and she'd wait freaking three months to respond to me.
And I'd email her right away.
She'd wait two months to respond to me.
She just dangled me for two years, you know?
And then finally, I wore her down enough.
She got coffee with me and then we fell in love right there, January 24th, 2013, and called us coffee in Columbia, Missouri.
And you met her the other night?
Yeah, beautiful lady, man.
We had a nice time.
I came over for the, just to watch some of the election, and it was a nice time, man.
Yeah, it was fun, man.
And then I took some to-go plate.
I wish I'd have taken a bigger one.
Yeah, dude.
You should have, man.
We still got like six pounds of brisket.
And I was thinking, I was like, somebody's like, I'm going to take a to-go plate.
I'm like, yes.
They only got three people living here.
Can't eat all of this.
Two adults out of 10. Four-year-old, exactly.
I was going out of town.
Yeah, dude.
I'm glad you took some.
That was if you want some.
That was fun, man.
Yeah, that's like, yeah, my whole thing is like, I'll send girls like DMs.
I'll be like, hey, did I see you at the grocery?
And then they were like, I live in Moscow.
And I'm like, well, yeah, I was there.
Yeah, my bad, my bad.
But I'll send those.
I must have been on my friend's FaceTime.
He was walking through the grocery.
I saw you in the background.
His name's Vladimir.
Yeah, yeah.
That's fucking great, Vladimir.
That's all I got, Riley.
Any question you want me to ask for you?
My mom is somewhere else.
All right, Michael Chandler, man.
Dude, it's a pleasure to watch your ride, man.
And thank you so much for coming and joining us today, man.
Thanks for having me.
It's fun.
Yeah.
I'm just falling on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take a little time For me to set that parking brake And let myself unwind Shine that light on
me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I will sing it to you Just go.
Just go.
you you you you you you Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Hi, Sweet.
Easy to you.
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
John Main.
I'll take a quarter pot of cheese at a McFlurry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Second rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?
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