Conor McGregor came to blows with Michael Chandler in the latest Ultimate Fighter episode, pushing his opponent in an angry exchange before vowing to break his nose.
Tempers flared between the two men in this week’s show when Chandler’s fighter again beat one of McGregor’s, prompting an exchange between the two.
McGregor had failed to make the weigh-in for his own fighter, Lee Hammond, before he faced Chandler’s Kurt Holobaugh, something which Chandler picked up on.
‘Stacking them up, baby. Maybe if you showed up for them,’ Chandler said, stepping in towards an approaching McGregor.
‘I’ll show up and break your nose, you little fool, you little Bellator tick,’ McGregor said. ‘You won’t do nothing.’
Things hit a boiling point between the coaches tonight on #TUF31 🤬
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— The Ultimate Fighter (@UltimateFighter) July 5, 2023
Conor McGregor came to blows with Michael Chandler on this week’s Ultimate Fighter
Chandler taunted the Irishman after beating his team once again on the programme
Chandler said: ‘I can’t f***ing wait’, to which McGregor pushed him in the chest and Chandler cheered.
‘Are we going to do this, are we going to fight right now,’ Chandler asked, seemingly ready to go there and then.
It was at that moment that UFC chief Dana White, stood outside the octagon watching the two shouting, rushed in to keep them apart. At one point, he is heard shouting ‘get out of my way’.
Reflecting on the incident in a cut scene filmed afterwards, Chandler said: ‘Conor McGregor grabbed my face and pushed me.
‘I’m ready to fight right there if it goes down.’
Most of the filming for this series took place in March. McGregor and Chandler are set to fight at the end of the Ultimate Fighter series but at present, there are a myriad of reasons as to why the Irishman won’t be entering the octagon soon.
McGregor has recently been accused of 𝑠e𝑥ual assault by a woman he allegedly met during the NBA Finals between Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets.
The woman met McGregor at the game at the Kaseya Center and was leaving the arena when she claims his security told her he was asking for her in the bathroom. Once inside the bathroom, she claims he forced her to perform oral 𝑠e𝑥 on him and forcibly kissed her.
UFC chief Dana White looked on edge as things got heated between the two fighters
McGregor says he is ‘well in preparation’ for his upcoming fight with Michael Chandler
She claims McGregor then spat on her and on himself while trying to arouse himself. The woman’s attorney told DailyMail.com she went to police to report the incident but was turned away and advised to hire legal help.
McGregor denies the allegations. ‘These allegations are false. Mr. McGregor will not be intimidated,’ his attorney said in a statement when the allegations surfaced.
Furthermore he is still yet to re-enroll in the USADA drug testing pool and recently missed the deadline to stage his upcoming fight with Michael Chandler this year.
The final UFC pay-per-view event of 2023 is pencilled in for December 16, so McGregor would have to have made himself available for testing by June 16 in order to complete the mandatory six months of random drug tests to be cleared to compete.
However, McGregor still hasn’t been added to USADA’s online database. In fact, he hasn’t be on there since the third quarter of 2021.
Yet McGregor recently insisted on Twitter he is ‘well in preparation’ for his upcoming fight, which suggests he could be back in action this year.
The Irishman has not fought since he was beaten by Dustin Poirer for the second time in 2021
He tweeted: ‘I look forward to my upcoming fight. I am well in preparation.’ Chandler is also under the impression that he will be fighting McGregor in 2023.
‘I think Conor’s coming back’, Chandler said on Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel last week. ‘I don’t think he wants to stain his legacy by leading us all down this road of, “I’m doing the Ultimate Fighter, I’m fighting Michael Chandler – Oh, by the way, never mind. I’m not coming back.”
‘Supposedly there was a countdown with USADA, six months, and all that other stuff. That’s not for me to choose or decide.
‘Have there been exemptions before? People are talking about exemptions. Of course, that’s all on the table.’