“Iron” desires to interrupt his curse.
Michael Chandler makes his long-awaited Final Preventing Championship (UFC) return to competitors after unsuccessfully ready for Conor McGregor as he takes on Charles Oliveira this weekend (Sat., Nov. 16, 2024) at UFC 309 from inside the long-lasting Madison Sq. Backyard in New York Metropolis.
Chandler final competed inside MSG in a shedding effort in opposition to Dustin Poirier and appears to proper the fallacious within the legendary constructing – in actual fact, he’s 0-3 at MSG.
“Iron” misplaced to Brent Primus when he was with Bellator, the one time Bellator visited “The Backyard.” Then Chandler misplaced to Justin Gaethje in his second UFC struggle, which ended up being Struggle of the 12 months, and, a 12 months later, misplaced to Poirier.
Some may name it a curse—identical to Derrick Lewis continually shedding in his house state of Texas or Chris Weidman shedding in New York 3 times. Nevertheless it’s not essentially a curse for Chandler; moderately, it is a storyline.
“I am defeated at MSG, 0-3,” Chandler informed Ariel Helwani. “I truly simply bumped into a man who had been to all three of my fights at MSG, and he is like, ‘Hey dude, we gotta break the MSG curse.’ However I additionally take a look at this like one other layer the place I am like, after all, that is the way it’s imagined to be: to struggle the man who has already beat you, who additionally shattered your goals to struggle on the enviornment who has additionally shattered your goals each single time. I’ve by no means received inside there, and now it is time to proper that fallacious.”
Is Chandler superstitious about preventing in an enviornment the place he is misplaced a lot?
“No, not even a bit bit,” Chandler stated. “I requested for this card. We wished to struggle in October however I have to do a critical legit weigh reduce. I had been getting ready my thoughts and physique for 170 lbs for the final 12 months and a half, and now I solely have 10 weeks with the intention to get right down to 155 for October. It wasn’t going to occur; it was too quickly, so I wished MSG, and we obtained it.”
With a win inside Madison Sq. Backyard, Chandler believes he’ll snatch Oliveria’s No. 2 rating, forcing Light-weight champion Islam Makhachev to struggle him in 2025.
Good luck breaking the curse, Mike.
Keep in mind that MMAmania.com will ship LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow protection of the complete UFC 309 struggle card proper right here, beginning with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches on-line, that are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. ET (simulcast on ESPNews at 8 p.m. ET), earlier than the pay-per-view (PPV) major card begin time at 10 p.m. ET (additionally on ESPN+).
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