Michael Chandler’s stock keeps mooning despite not having the best track record thus far inside the Octagon. That’s in large part to his exciting style, which has made him an instant fan-favorite since crossing over from Bellator MMA.
With a record of 2-3, Chandler still sits pretty as a Top 5-ranked Lightweight, but not everyone is impressed with his overall body of work, including Jorge Masvidal, who recently shot down the idea of a potential scrap against “Iron” after catching wind of the former Bellator champion’s interest in fighting him for the “BMF” title.
“Michael Chandler’s a quitter, man,” Masvidal told MMA Fighting. “That’s like the first thing to being a BMF. I saw him fight my boy Will Brooks, and Will Brooks hit that motherf—ker so hard he just quit in the middle of the [fight]. He turned back, shook his head and was like, ‘Nah, I’m done fighting,” Masvidal said in reference to Brooks’ technical knockout win over Chandler in 2014.
While Masvidal says it’s okay to lose, quitting is never an option if you want to hold the “BMF” belt.
“BMF my ass,” he explained. “That’s the first rule of being a BMF — you can’t be a quitter. You might lose, but you can’t give up on yourself. You can’t quit. That conversation for the BMF belt? No, it ain’t happening. C’mon Chandler: I know you don’t have a good perception of the world, but that’s not happening.”
Furthermore, “Gamebred” claims that defeating Chandler — who is coming off a submission loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 281 (highlights) — doesn’t do much to enhance his career or get him closer to a future title shot.
“That fight doesn’t do anything for me in the 170-pound rankings, or [getting to] the belt,” Masvidal said. “If he comes up to the weight class and I hit up with a jab, and he turns into dust — he disintegrates, like one of those old statues that disintegrate to dust — you know what people are going to say? They’ll say, ‘Yeah, you’re supposed [to do that].’
“But let it be a little bit of a fight, or anything like that,” he continied. “I don’t see any risk-reward with this fight. Me killing this guy doesn’t do anything for me, or my career, so I really don’t care about it. He’s not really a pay-per-view seller either. I’m not saying I won’t entertain it in the future, but to actually say there will be a whole event [built around] it, or whatever he’s plotting in his head? Nah, probably not, bro.”
Masvidal — ranked No. 11 at Welterweight — is currently on a three-fight losing streak, with his last win coming more than three years ago against Nate Diaz.