Michael Chandler cut a fiery promo on WWE Raw earlier this week in which he publicly ridiculed UFC superstar Conor McGregor, but the callout was never actually planned.
Instead, Chandler was only supposed to be featured on camera for the weekly WWE event. Now that WWE and UFC are under the same TKO Group umbrella it made sense for Chandler to make a nice little appearance. Wrestling fans may not be familiar with Chandler’s overall work, but he’s currently one of the more recognizable names on the UFC roster today.
It was a nice plan to follow until Chandler flipped the script and asked WWE officials if he could have access to a microphone. They ran it up the flagpole for approval and the rest is history.
Chandler explained all of this during a recent appearance on Wednesday’s episode of The MMA Hour (via MMA Fighting).
“Two minutes before, they said, ‘Hey, they’re going to put the camera on you.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you give me that microphone?’” Chandler recalled. “And they said, ‘Hold on, let me run it up the flagpole real quick.’ And then about a minute later, they said, ‘Hey, you’re going on in a minute and you’re going to get the microphone if you want the microphone,’ and then magic happened. … Less than five minutes [of notice]. There was nothing prepared. Nothing. I was thrown into the fire. Smacked myself a couple of times and then we went.
“There’s no video footage of me taking my shirt off, but Pat McAfee said I took my shirt off [after], so got the crowd into it, I was flexing on everybody. It was fun, man. It was a lot of fun, and man, I’m tired of waiting on Conor, so get his candy ass back to the octagon.”
If Chandler is telling the truth and none of it was planned then it was one of the better on-the-spot promos in a very long time. His energy and delivery ultimately had an arena full of pro wrestling fans cheering and caring about his UFC callout of McGregor.
Chandler was so good on the microphone that some people think he’d be a good addition to the pro wrestling scene. While nothing has been discussed, the UFC lightweight contender is more than interested in coming back to the WWE universe.
“We will see,” Chandler said. “Obviously there’s a crossover there. Ton of respect for the wrestlers, the brass there. They have a ton of respect for the UFC. It was really cool being there, watching other athletes and entertainers and performers, and [them] being huge fans of mixed martial arts, and me of them. So it was really cool. There’s a lot of synergy there and the sky’s the limit when it comes to TKO Group and what we can do in the crossover, and yeah, man, it’s probably just the very beginning.”
As for Chandler’s upcoming fight with McGregor, that remains a work in progress with “a lot of complicated stuff happening” behind the scenes.