Michael Chandler appears to be in the shape of his life ahead of UFC 303.
The former three-time Bellator champion will welcome Conor McGregor back from his lengthy spell on the sidelines at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on June 29.
Chandler has been willing to wait for a fight with MMA’s biggest starCredit: Getty
Rumours about the fight being called off were rife when a planned press conference featuring the two UFC stars was cancelled at the eleventh-hour last week.
McGregor played into concerns that he was injured by posting a picture from a doctor’s office, but Chandler went back to the gym and continued training.
‘Iron’ shared two shirtless pictures of him lifting weights on Instagram.
He captioned the post: “When the pain is your pleasure and you’ve never worked a day in your life. – Walk On. – See you at the top!”
Chandler was sporting abs and looking in tremendous shape for his first fight since suffering a third-round submission defeat to Dustin Poirier in November 2022.
The 38-year-old recently assured fans that all his hard work won’t go to waste, and he confirmed that his clash with McGregor is still on.
“Yeah, the fight’s happening,” Chandler told the Pivot Podcast.
“Obviously, where we are there’s a lot of speculation, but yeah, the fight is on. June 29, it’s happening.”
Chandler was all smiles despite uncertainty surrounding UFC 303Credit: @mikechandlermma – instagram
He’s in the best shape of his lifeCredit: @mikechandlermma – instagram
Chandler admits that the press conference being called off did worry him, but he’s trying to focus on the things in his control ahead of UFC 303.
He added: “So, I was actually up late that night because the fights were on the East Coast.
“I didn’t get into bed until 12.30 or 1 because I wanted to watch Islam Makhachev vs Dustin Poirier, so I watched that fight.
“So, I had probably fallen asleep for maybe 45 minutes or an hour and I woke up to my phone buzzing and it was Hunter Campbell.
“Everybody knows that Dana White is the face but Hunter is the guy behind the guy, he handles a lot of stuff behind the scenes for the UFC.
“He called me and let me know ‘Hey, it’s looking like this thing isn’t going to happen’.
Chandler is trying not to worry about what his opponent’s up to
“But it’s the layers in which ‘Okay, if the presser is cancelled is there something else going on?’
“Then obviously immediately speculation starts going all over the place in 2024 with social media and all that stuff.
“I just kept resting on the fact that I can only control what I can control.
“I have been doing that now for a year and a half with this whole fight if you’ve been following it with all the different dates that have gone on and were supposed to happen but didn’t.
“Now here we are fighting in June of 2024, and it’s a case of ‘if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans’, right?
“This isn’t about me, I ain’t in control so we’re just going to roll with it.”