Michael Chandler has launched a passionate defence of his integrity, denying accusations that he is a “dirty fighter”.
Chandler lost a lopsided decision against Charles Oliveira at UFC 309 this month, though he did come close to stopping the Brazilian in the fifth and final round.
Yet the American’s most effective strikes – hammer fists to a downed Oliveira – drew claims that Chandler was targeting the back of his opponent’s head, which would represent illegal shots.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani of Uncrowned on Wednesday (27 November), Chandler expressed frustration at the UFC 309 commentary team, whose suggestions that he was hitting the back of Oliveira’s head were echoed by some fans online.
Chandler said he was annoyed by “the misinterpretation of what the back of the head is, by the unified rules of mixed martial arts” and “the misinterpretation of what cage-grabbing is, and a couple different things”.
“It’s all water under the bridge at this point, but more than anything, I’m an honest guy,” said Chandler, 38. “I try to live pretty full of integrity and full of honesty, and a narrative that has been painted is not very interesting to me. I’m not very happy about it, but it’s all a part of it.
“I’m not going to say I didn’t do anything wrong, okay? I’m not going to say that people couldn’t look at it and splice it and look at it under a fine-toothed comb and a magnifying glass. But the unified rules of mixed martial arts say that there is a line drawn from the crown of the head down to the neck, one-inch variants on either side. So, you’re talking about a two-inch area on the back of someone’s head that is considered ‘the back of the head’.
“If you watch 90 per cent of the shots […] my hand, my fist was catching the ear. So, if you’re catching the ear, that is not the back of the head. And actually, what you and I would call back of the head is not the actual definition of the back of the head; [it’s] that two-inch strip down the back of the head. And a referee who was within two feet away never said one thing about it. And then you’ve got commentators, who were 35 feet away, saying it’s the back of the head.
“Things are happening, it’s going a thousand miles an hour. If the referee was yelling at me, ‘Hey, Michael, watch the back of the head,’ or, ‘That is the back of the head,’ he might give you one shot […] and then I would’ve changed courses, I would’ve changed the trajectory. But none of them were going straight down. They were all coming at a 45-degree angle, towards the side and the ear.
“And ultimately, man, you’re down on points, you’re dropping a guy, you’re trying to hit him and get him out of there. I’m not 100 per cent thinking about that little red line between that back of the head the whole time. You want to say I suck at fighting, you want to say I’m not a good technician, you want to say I’ve got low fight IQ, you want to say I should’ve wrestled and not struck – or struck and not wrestled… If you want to talk about these tactical things, that’s completely fine.
“But when you talk about, ‘Hey, this guy’s a dirty fighter because he was striking to the back of the head,’ and it wasn’t really the back of the head… and quite frankly we have a guy who gets paid to be locked in the Octagon with you, who has reffed thousands of unified mixed martial arts bouts and never said anything – just like I think it was Herb Dean who didn’t in the Poirier fight… It’s interesting, man.”
Chandler was addressing his 2022 loss to Dustin Poirier, who accused Chandler of ‘fish-hooking’ his mouth with his fingers and blowing blood from his nose onto Poirier’s face.
In early 2023, it was announced that Chandler would fight Conor McGregor later in the year. However, that bout was never given a date until this April, when the pair were lined up for the main event of UFC 303 in June.
McGregor then suffered a broken toe, postponing the fight indefinitely. As a result, Chandler decided to face Oliveira at UFC 309, two-and-a-half years after losing to the Brazilian via TKO.
