Michael Chandler has virtually put his career on hold waiting to fight Conor McGregor. The former Bellator champion last fought in November 2022 in a losing cause against Dustin Poirier at UFC 281. After which, he appeared as head coach on last year’s season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ opposite the bombastic Irishman. Since then, he has been waiting to fight ‘Mac’.

Originally slated to fight late last year, the bout was punched back to this year. Finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel as the UFC announced the UFC 303 on June 29 for their much-awaited clash. Yet, after the fight was canceled due to McGrgor breaking his pinkie toe, he will have to wait even more. But Joe Rogan thinks the Missouri native should move on.

Joe Rogan floats BMF title bout for Michael Chandler

Joe Rogan, on the JRE Fight Companion for UFC Saudi Arabia, was asked by Brendan Schaub what he thinks Chandler should do after McGregor pulled out of their UFC 303 clash. “Joe let me ask you this, if you’re Michael Chandler, what do you do?” he asked.

And Rogan, without a hint of hesitation, said that he should move on from McGregor and fight another opponent. The main reason for this was the fact that the former Bellator champion has not fought, and therefore, has not earned a paycheck from fighting in two years. The podcast host floated a BMF title bout against Max Holloway, instead.

“Fight somebody. Max Holloway, BMF, I hear people are talking about that fight, that’s an amazing fight. He needs money. You can’t not fight for two f***ing years,” Rogan said.

Schaub reminded Rogan that Chandler was a veritable businessman and had multiple streams of revenue, which means he has more than enough money and will be able to comfortably wait for McGregor to get healthy again. Rogan, however, was unconvinced.

The 56-year-old felt that even if Chandler was well taken care of financially, he had missed out on multiple potentially seven-figure paydays by refusing to fight, and felt that he should not resume his career for his family if nothing else. “Wouldn’t it be nice if he was making millions over those two years? Like even if you’re doing well, two years is a long time, he’s got a family,” Rogan added.

But ‘Iron’ is likely to disregard the UFC commentator’s advice.

Why Chandler has decided to wait for Conor McGregor again

Amid these calls for Michael Chandler to move on from fighting Conor McGregor, the Irishman took to Twitter recently and gave one simple albeit convincing reason for ‘Iron’ to wait further: money. ‘Mac’ claimed that Chandler was getting paid ten times the amount to fight him than Chandler would earn from fighting someone else.

“Chandler is getting paid 10x of what his contract states for other fights. Meaning he would need to fight 10 fights to make what he would make in this one. I’m The One,” he tweeted.

And that does indeed seem close to the truth since Chandler, being the intelligent, business-savvy fighter that he is, wouldn’t wait for two years, plus however many months McGregor takes to recover if he wasn’t being paid well. After all, ‘red-panty night’ is a well-known phenomenon for fighters who face McGregor, with even reigning champ Islam Makhachev having admitted one would “have to be stupid to say no” to fight the Irishman.

Chandler is 38 and the clock on his career is ticking rapidly, but a McGregor bout even if it takes two years is sure to be the biggest payday of his career. Which is why he might have decided to wait further.