Setting It Straight on ‘Hate’ for Michael Chandler, Khabib’s Former Opponent Wants to Settle High School Score

Waiting for two years just to get his hands on Conor McGregor didn’t pan out the way Michael Chandler hoped for. When he finally decided to make his return recently at UFC 309, he suffered a decision loss to Charles Oliveira, but later claimed to be still waiting for ‘The Notorious’ for that ‘red panty night’. However, it seems like Chandler may not have to look anywhere else for his next fight because one of his teammates, who fought Khabib Nurmagomedov, wants to butt heads with ‘Iron’ because of a score they have to settle.

Now, when teammates talk about fighting each other, which is not a very common occurrence in the UFC, there is often speculation about a possible beef between them. However, Michael Chandler‘s former Blackzilians teammate, Michael Johnson, claims that there’s no bad blood between him and the former Bellator champion. There’s just one thing that he wants to settle with his longtime friend, which is the loss he suffered during a wrestling match in high school.

“No, I don’t hate Chandler. Man, we go way back, since like, high school. But you know, I called him out after the fight, just f***ing around, but he’s a guy that inspires me,” Michael Johnson stated on the ‘Overdogs Podcast’. “He’s also a teammate, but that’ll be a fun fight. I’m all about fun fights, big fights… He’s one of them… He beat me in wrestling, bro. His section of high school, 4 to 3. I need to get that one back.”

For context, Michael Chandler has more than 100 career wins in amateur wrestling and has NCAA D1 honors from the University of Missouri. So, it’s not a surprise that he got the better of Michael Johnson in their wrestling match. Maybe he could consider fighting his teammate, or maybe not because the High Ridge native has another fight in mind besides Conor McGregor.

Michael Chandler is open to fighting a former UFC fighter

Conor McGregor’s recent controversy has created doubts about his UFC return, but he’d go on to an announcement about a boxing match against YouTuber-cum-WWE superstar, Logan Paul. It was pretty unexpected, to say the least, and this only means that Michael Chandler will have to wait again for many months before he gets any hint about McGregor’s UFC return. But in the meantime, he has set his sights on Jorge Masvidal as the former BMF champion recently expressed his wish to come out of retirement.

Recently, Chandler got word about Masvidal’s statements about his probable comeback. In a tweet mirroring Nick Diaz’s famous callout to Georges St-Pierre back in 2013, the Missouri native made his intentions clear. He wrote to call out ‘Gamebred’ saying, “Where you at Jorge?” Now, Dana White doesn’t seem to be interested in bringing back the veteran fighter, who lost his last four UFC fights before calling it a career at UFC 287. So, there’s still no surety if Chandler will get to butt heads against Masvidal anytime soon.

Meanwhile, what do you have to say about a potential Michael Johnson vs Michael Chandler fight? Would you like to see the two teammates clash inside the Octagon? Drop your comments below.