Michael Chandler is a three-time Bellator Lightweight champion (Instagram)
Michael Chandler calls Khabib Nurmagomedov the toughest challenge in the sport as he speaks about the Russian’s retirement
Khabib Nurmagomedov bowed out from the sport earlier in March when he officially announced his retirement. Dana White tried everything he could to bring him back to UFC.
But it was not to be. The 32-year-old officially called it a day and brought end to a career that saw him win all 29 of his professional MMA fights.
The soon-to-be-former lightweight champion is one of the best grapplers and wrestler that MMA has ever seen. And Michael Chandler, who has his own title bout coming at UFC 262, agrees with it.
Talking to ESPN MMA earlier this week, he stated how all fighters want the biggest challenges and that Khabib is the hardest fight anyone could possibly take up at 155.
“There is no secret, Khabib is the biggest challenge, the hardest puzzle to solve. Even for a guy like myself, who I fancy myself as a pretty darn good wrestler. He’s still an animal when it comes to the ground game, the sambo, the top pressure, just mauling people, so that was something I wanted to experience myself.”
After stating his desire to fight Khabib, Chandler, who recently joined the promotion from Bellator and beat Dan ‘The Hangman’ Hooker in his first UFC fight, stated that Khabib’s return was always highly unlikely.
“I think it was wishful thinking on everybody’s part that he was going to come back. I think it was a foregone conclusion. Even me, Khabib was retired when I called him out in my post-fight speech, you know.”
Chandler now has a golden chance to get his hand on UFC gold. It won’t be against Khabib, but it would still etch his name into UFC history books.
He faces Charles Oliveira for the belt at UFC 262 in a title bout that will see the first new lightweight champion since UFC 223.
It is likely that the winner of this bout will face the winner of Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier 3 which could happen in July this year.
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