Why This UFC Star REGRETS His Past Mental Approach to Fighting | Michael Chandler DSH #955

As an athlete who takes it as serious as I do, so focused on doing everything perfect and you get hard on yourself if you have a little bit of a bad meal or you get hard on yourself if you didn't go hard enough.

So I like to pull back, but for the most part, man, I'm 100% go all the time.

And I think that's why I've had such longevity in the sport.

All right, guys, Digital Social Hour.

We're here with Michael Chandler in Nashville.

Thanks for having me, man.

Of course, man.

Thank you for coming to the greatest city in the world.

Absolutely.

We were just talking about Nashville off Air.

this is a good city it's in my top three now i'm not even kidding it's it's really really cool great place to raise a family you know i've got the two sons and uh the people are just top notch yeah i know family is super important to you when you were deciding where to live was that a big reason why you moved here it was you know we we were living in san diego and we knew we were going to move because i started training in florida um which that i still train with that team and will train with that team for the rest of my career and yeah we looked at texas we're both my wife and i are both from missouri um so tennessee's got that kind of it's just it's that southern hospitality, a little bit of Midwest, a little south, but it's also a really cool city in the sense that there's so many people moving here.

There's so much, so much going on.

You can have a, have a very, very

fun time.

You can also just chill and be relaxed.

Yeah.

Every person we talked to before I moved here was like, this is a great place to raise a family from the schools to the morals to the to just the fabric of the ethos of this city.

So it's, it's, uh, it's a great place.

I love it, man.

I've been keeping up with your workouts of the day.

Man, they are incredible.

Yeah,

we go pretty hard.

You go hard.

And the fascinating thing is, because you don't have a fight lined up right now, right?

No.

But you're still training super hard.

Always, man.

I think I just look at it like every day that I don't.

You know, and obviously there's times where I need to pull back.

There's times where I need to take it a little bit easy.

Because

as an athlete who takes it as serious as I do, it's very easy to turn into a robot and you become so anal and so

focused on doing everything perfect.

And you get hard on yourself if you have a a little bit of a bad meal or you get hard on yourself if you didn't go hard enough.

So I like to pull back, but for the most part, man, I'm 100% go all the time.

And I think that's why I've had such longevity in the sport.

My body feels great.

I'm 38 years old.

So

a lot of guys don't make it at a high level where I'm at this long.

And I think it has a lot to do with coming out of training camp and getting fat and slow and sloppy and getting out of shape and then trying to work back into shape.

I just try to stay in shape all the time.

You're like the brawn of the UFC.

Trying to.

That's what, you know, and I've done a lot of research.

You know, I'm really trying to maximize my body and get the most I can out of it because I got this short window of opportunity to compete in the cage for as long as I can.

And before you know it, it's going to be over.

And I want to be able to answer that question truthfully.

Did I do everything I could with the gifts that I was given?

Did I give it all myself, give all of myself to it when I took those gloves off for the last time?

I think I'm doing an all right job at it, so I'm going to keep on going.

I love it.

No regrets, right?

No regrets, man.

Do you feel like you're still getting better at your age?

I do.

And actually, it was very interesting because I, you know, a little bit of backstory, like over the last year and a half, I've been kind of waiting for this fight with Connor.

Yeah.

So me and Connor McGregor do the ultimate fighter.

We're on ESPN for 12 weeks.

It's a great opportunity.

We signed to fight each other in June, just a couple months ago.

He pulls out of the fight.

But between that, I kind of pulled myself out of the gym to just heal up a little bit.

focus on just fitness and enjoying life and working on things outside of just fighting.

So I was out of the gym a lot, out of the mixed martial arts gym a lot for about over a year.

And I feel like I started the next training camp almost as a blank slate.

I got rid of some bad habits that I had.

I had more of a zeal for the love and the passion of a sport that really is a grinding, just a just a grinder.

So you kind of lose a little bit of that passion because you're just constantly grinding.

So pulling myself out of it, my last camp I had was the best camp of my life.

Wow.

And the best sparring session I ever had was on Thursday, June 12th or 13th, the day I got the call that Connor pulled out of the fight.

Wow.

So with that, you you know, that proof is in the pudding right there.

Like, I still feel phenomenal at 38 and

win that world title.

Do you think that fight will ever come back to light?

You know, I do.

I think it's really just going to depend on timing and making a decision.

I think if we're going to, if this fight's going to drag out any longer, if it's going to be into 2025, I'm probably going to pivot and find someone else.

Or I'm at least open to it.

And if it is, it's going to be a big fight.

It's going to be a top five, top three guy, number one contender.

Give me the opportunity to go out there, beat a guy who's in the top of the division, and then go win the title.

Right.

The title, winning the UFC gold and being the number one fighter, consensus ranked the number one fighter in the world has always been the goal.

This last year or so, chasing the Connor thing and following the Connor, the Connor fight was always a nice, big, it's the biggest fight you can possibly have.

So it makes sense to follow it and exhaust that, you know, ride that horse till you get bucked off, right?

But

at some point, you realize you might have bet on the wrong horse.

He's like betting on a three-legged horse in a race.

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We'll make our decision.

And either way, I believe I win gold by 2025.

Love it, man.

Love that mindset.

Do you believe it's possible to be a complete fighter or do you believe every fighter has a weakness?

I think every fighter is going to have weaknesses.

And it's a great question.

And because people always say, hey, how much film do you watch?

Right?

How much are you focused on your opponent?

How much are you changing your style to the opponent?

And I'm not saying

my way is the right way, but I've always focused so much more on my strengths, what I'm good at.

And I know I've got deficiencies.

I know I've got things I can get better at, and I'm constantly working on those things.

But overall, I'd rather double down on my strengths than really focus on all my weaknesses.

Because a lot of times you focus on your weaknesses.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of the shot you don't want to get hit with, or you lose the way you don't want to lose, or Connor McGregor's got a really great pullback left hand.

Let's focus on not getting hit with that.

When really, if I just focus on me, the best, being the best version of myself, I can find myself not falling into that self-fulfilling prophecy of getting hit with a shot I don't want to get hit with

and ultimately too you know we're all we all got different strengths we all got two arms and two legs and we all got certain athletic abilities and gifts but we're all gonna have weaknesses there's always gonna be and sometimes your weakness is better than some other people's strengths but they're just not even as close to as good or as as effective as your strengths are.

So is it really a weakness or is it just you're not as good at certain things?

I'm not going to be great at spinning back kicks or like like these certain things that we think we need to do as mixed martial arts.

Keep it simple.

Keep it.

Keep the main thing, the main thing, and focus on the strengths.

What an interesting mindset.

So just doubling down on your strengths.

I think so.

I mean,

it's just human nature, too, right?

You have things you're good at.

Yeah.

And you probably enjoy those things.

You have things that you suck at.

And if you just constantly focused on trying to be better at these things that you suck at instead of hiring somebody to do the thing that you suck at and they enjoy, right?

So I look at it like that.

If I look at my fight performances like I'm trying to run a business, do I I want to try to say, hey, there's these five things that I'm, that these guys are better than me at, and I know I can work on them a little bit, but why don't I just focus on the things that I'm really good at?

And, you know, I've got a pretty decent record over the last 16 years, won world titles and ranked the top six in the world.

So I must be doing decent enough to with my strengths and how I, how I focus on my strengths.

So that's what we focused on.

And

we'll keep getting better in all areas.

Absolutely.

How tough was that transition from Bellator to the UFC?

I think it was not hard physically because I always say I think the reason I always wanted to go to the UFC was not because

for any other reason besides the fact that I trained with guys in the UFC, trained with world champions in the UFC, trained with all these guys.

And I saw the way they lived their lives and I thought, man, I'm living my life more like a champion, training harder, just as disciplined, if not more disciplined, and doing all the right things, right?

So I deserve to go out there and be on the biggest platform.

So, but mentally, it was a scary, scary thing.

You know, it's, it's, I was in Bellator.

I had very, a very, very secure standing in Bellator.

You were champ, right?

Champ and

like in the biggest name in Bellator, and I was making good money and, and, I, and I was, I was at the top of that heap, so to speak.

So when you bet on yourself, there's the opportunity cost of, well, well, if I make this decision, I could give up on this.

If I make this decision and that doesn't go well, and I quote unquote made a bad decision, I should have stayed.

So I think it was more just a lot of, you know, praying about it and seeking wise counsel and just constantly visualizing it and seeing it until it became clear to me that door just opened.

For years when I was going through contract negotiations or

getting close to free agency, that door just seemed like it was just a little bit locked.

Like I knew the door would open if I wanted to force my way into it, but it was just locked.

Right.

And then all of a sudden, it was just wide open.

I was like, this has got to be the time to do it.

And then I signed with the UFC.

Khabib retires, his first fight.

I fight Dan Hooker, number five, knock him out, and then get the title shot.

and it's just it all worked out at the right time yeah timing was impactable it could be the right decision at the wrong time right and it could be it could be the right decision is just not ready to be made yet so it worked out great and i'm really glad i waited till 2020 to do yeah you seize the moment

because that seems like a very pivotal fight like i know the ufc is pretty cutthroat if you lose a couple fights you're out right yeah and that well and that was the thing and and that's what uh that's what i told the ufc in my negotiations i said hey listen you know who i am you've seen my fights i obviously know who you guys are.

I want to fight the toughest guys right away.

I'm here to prove to myself, more importantly than anybody else, either I am who I say I am or I am not.

I believe I can hang with the best guys in the world.

So throw me into the shark-infested waters of the UFC.

And since I've signed with the UFC, I've had five fights.

Every single fight has been top five,

top two, top three.

you know, fights of the night, performances of the night, knockout of the night, debut of the year, fight of the year.

It's just fighting the toughest guys.

And that's what I asked for.

And they've made good on that promise.

And I said, I want to be a good thing for your organization.

And I also told Dana, I said, Hey, I don't think four years ago I would have been the man that you need me to be for your organization.

I wouldn't have been the champion.

I wouldn't have been the mature veteran that you need and you deserve to be fighting in your organization.

So here I am, fully matured, blossoming, ready to go take on the greatest challenge of my life.

And it's worked out well so far.

I love it.

You might be the oldest champ of all time.

Man, that would be

great.

I don't know who it is right now, but 38's pushing it, bro.

38's pushing it.

I think 40.

Who was it?

Stipe, maybe, or somebody right around there, but man.

Well, heavyweight's not as much competition.

Yeah, and you see those guys fighting longer.

You know,

I think it's because it takes, I don't want to say less skill, but it's like, you know, when you're a 155-pounder, you got to stay fast.

You got to have good cardio.

You got to have power.

You got to have it all.

Whereas the heavyweights, it's like, hey, I got a right hand or a left hook and I got to just put your lights out because I'm a large, large human being.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you feel like there was a fight where your opponent brought out the best version of you

yeah i mean i think justin gaitchy the justin gaitchy fight it was it was fight of the year 2021 yeah madison

garden yeah it was it was awesome it was and obviously i lost that fight right on the scorecards right lost the fight but i i use air quotes because did i really lose you know in the sport of mixed martial arts winning is very important you want to get the nod you want to get your hand raised but sometimes you win even though you lost on the scorecards right and i think that was one of those fights when it's like i won fans over people saw who i was they saw the heart they saw fighting is so much bigger than punches and kicks and knees and elbows in this competition that we have called fighting in a cage right it's it makes people feel something they won't remember the exact performance but they'll remember how you made them feel just like they won't remember what you said but they'll remember how you made them feel how they felt while you were you were around them so that that fight because it was a scary fight justin gaetchy is an absolute warrior yeah you know i wasn't scared of him so to say so to speak but it was a scary fight I'm like, that man right there will die in this cage.

I know he is willing to die in this cage.

He is that kind of guy.

So those are the kind of fights that you get up for and you get excited for.

And he brought out the best of me.

Wow.

What a scary feeling knowing your opponent's ready to just die.

Oh, 100%.

And I think anybody who's a mixed martial arts fan who's watching this is like, yeah, Justin Gachi's on the Mount Rushmore of, yeah, that guy would die in a cage and has no...

has it would have no second thoughts and the funny thing about about me is as i sit here today consciously hanging out with my

I know I'm not going to die in the cage, right?

But when I go inside of the cage and that cage door locks, that guy who fights in there, he is willing to die.

And it's, it's crazy how you can, that is me.

It's my flesh and blood, and it's my heartbeat.

But, you know, you're just, you're in your zone and you're, you're willing to come, come what may, you know, whatever happens, which is just,

and I think that's why people love the sport.

They don't, if they can't really compare it to any of their life experiences, it's, it's such a, it's such a,

an interesting

perspective.

They're like, I like watching this, but I can't really put myself in that place.

Yeah.

Yeah, because it's the fight or flight kicking in, right?

For you.

So it's like a whole nother version of you.

Yeah.

And it's funny too.

People always say, man, does it hurt?

And how much pain have you been in?

And I mean, the funny thing is for me,

I'd love to tell all you guys that I'm this big, tough guy, and I have this huge pain tolerance.

But really, when you're in there, man, and adrenaline is pumping and you're in the spirit of competition, you don't really feel anything.

Wow.

You feel the impact.

You feel your head jar back when someone pops you in the mouth or the nose or the jaw, but you're not really feeling that pain like you would right now if I

punched you in the face.

Interesting.

Which fighter did you feel the most pain with?

So the funny thing is, one of the only times I really felt a lot of pain was I threw a kick on Eddie Alvarez years ago and I kicked him right in the hip.

You know, the punches, not because of the gloves, but just the punches, you don't really feel that much.

It's kind of like, especially the really, really good ones.

When you land a nice clean shot, people say it's like the hitting the sweet spot on the bat.

It feels like it didn't even hit the bat.

It's just, and then it's gone.

But I threw a kick on Eddie Alvarez.

I kicked him right in the hip and I bent my toes, like bent my foot in half.

Jeez.

And I like limped around for like 45 seconds and he beat the crap out of me for like a minute while I was getting my feet back underneath me.

That was the most pain I've ever been in an actual fight.

Now, training, you're in pain all the time because your senses aren't as, or your fight or flight, your adrenaline isn't as high.

You're trying to stay more present so you can stay in the right state of mind to hopefully have that come out on fight night.

Man, that's cool.

Do you agree with Dana White where he says John Jones is the GOAT?

I do.

I mean,

you know, obviously he had one loss and it was a DQ with a 12 to 6 elbow, which they just got rid of.

So I think they're going to make that a, not a no contest, but I think they're going to flip it over.

Oh, wow.

So they could overturn it.

I believe that's what people have said.

And I'm just listening to the internet.

Yeah.

Which it was always.

which is always truthful, right?

But I believe that's the case.

But man, you look at his body of work, you look at the guys guys he has fought um

he's got to be the goat right and now and he fought now he's fighting what a lot of people consider the the goat at heavyweight which is stipe miocic so that's happening at madison square garden here in you know nine ten weeks november 16th it's going to be and it could be one of his last fights if not his last fight it could be john jones's last fight could be stipe's last fight um and there's another title fight on the card it's a huge huge card and it's the world's most iconic arena it's madison square garden i fought there three times it is the loudest loudest, most hostile place I've ever been in my entire life.

Wow.

It's so, so loud.

I heard my coaches zero times.

I heard zero instructions coming from my coaches.

Maybe that's my fault.

Maybe I was just trying to kill Gaiti and trying to kill Poirier.

And

yeah, man,

that fight is going to be huge.

John Johnson.

Yeah.

Do you think in a loud setting like that, you should have some headpiece or something and communicate with your coach?

That would be great.

That would actually be really, really cool if you were able to put like a, you know, a little earpiece in, a hearing aid or whatever.

Because it is, and I guess obviously both guys are at a disadvantage.

If it's, if it's loud on one's, one side of the arena, it's loud on the other side.

It's just loud in there.

But man, that would, that would be cool because it's so hard to to hear.

You got a guy in front of you who's constantly moving, who's not taking any steps back, and he's looking you in the eyes, trying to kill you.

And you're always on danger or you're always in a dangerous situation.

So having your ears open to try to hear your coaches

is no easy task.

That's fascinating.

So you're just relying purely on instinct at that point.

Yeah, I mean, when you're not hearing your coaches, you're basically just out there, you know, you're fighting for your life.

And there's times where you could probably pause and take a step back.

And truthfully, I think that's why people love watching me fight.

I don't think that there's really,

there's no foot on the brakes at all.

There's not a brake pedal in sight.

You know, it's just all gas all the time, constantly coming forward.

I'm not afraid to go out there and

die on my shield, right?

Live by the sword, die by the sword, make it exciting, keep you on the edge of your seats.

That's why people buy my pay-per-views, and it's a lot of fun, and it's a huge blessing.

Absolutely.

I have great coaches, and they have really great coaching.

So I should probably try to listen to them a little bit more.

Who's the GOAT for your weight class?

And do you think you could catch him one day?

Oh, man, that's so tough, right?

Because you got Khabib.

Khabib was undefeated.

I would say, accolades-wise, yeah,

you got to go with Khabib.

But my personal preference, a guy who I have a personal relationship with is Frankie Edgar.

He had losses.

He won the title, lost the title.

So he doesn't have the accolades and the record of a guy like Khabib.

When it comes to like, hey, if I'm voting with my heart, it's Frankie Edgar.

Undersized kid from, he was a wrestler from Toms River, New Jersey, had some of the best fights I had ever seen.

He was a guy when I got into the sport, I wanted to emulate him and be just like him.

I'm like, hey, if you said there's one guy you can fight like, it's Frankie Edgar.

So, but when it comes to accolades, you got to look at Khabib.

um obviously his fellow countrymen and and uh brother islam mahachev who is our current champion right now he's got to be right behind him um but if i'm so i'm voting so if i'm voting with my head it's khabib if i'm voting with my heart it's frankie i feel that yeah islam's undefeated too right he's got one loss oh he's got one loss so one loss but he's now beaten who charles alivera gaiti poirier man he's beaten convincingly too convincingly like finishing guys right um

so it's uh

everybody you know that that's the one thing about khabib never having a loss.

It's hard to go through a career and not have a loss.

It's hard to go through a career like John Jones and not have losses, multiple losses.

It's just, you do all this training and you got this fight for 15 or 25 minutes and you're locked into a cage with another highly skilled, highly, highly motivated, highly talented individual.

And the chances of you losing is so high, you know.

So to be able to do it undefeated is pretty crazy.

Super impressive.

You know, like even Islam, Islam's one loss was a, I think he got knocked out.

Like it was a TKO.

Oh, yeah.

And we're going to get caught, man.

You got a chin and and you got a button, and I got a chin, and I got a button, and we're throwing, throwing punches and kicks, and knees and elbows, man.

It's just a, it's only a matter of time before you get caught.

Absolutely.

Are there any losses that you still think about?

You know, I don't want to sit here and act like I haven't had my moments where I had some regrets or, man, I wish I would have done this or fought this way.

I'm a guy who's never looked back and said, hey, I want that one back.

I want to fight that guy again to right that wrong.

You know, I got three losses in the UFC.

I have no, no wanting or no desire to fight poirier gaitchy or oliveira again because i want to right the wrong i would love to compete against those guys again just because i believe i i win a rematch but

um

man i would take the i would i would go back and look at the poirier fight my last fight um i think i had a momentary lapse of judgment and that you were winning right you were winning that fight i think i was up two rounds to none but on most people's scorecards um and yeah that's uh so all it takes in fighting is just one little mishap one mistake yeah and it's interesting too, right?

In other sports, there's a few things that could go wrong, but in mixed martial arts, there's so many things that can go wrong at any given moment, and it's a game of millimeters.

Wow.

But I think it's, that's part of it, man.

I think you can't accept and love and desire the good things about the sport, the spoils and the platform and what we get to do without also being grateful for the fact that, hey, man, there's so much danger going on and you could lose at any moment.

You can't take the good without also accepting the bad.

So I think I've always just enjoyed the fact that, man, I love that I get to go do something that people watch and they're so nervous.

They are on the edge of their seat, whether it's because they bet money on me or whether it's because they have a personal relationship with me or they're just a fan.

We all brave the unknown and we're tied on to a tornado.

And that's why people love the sport of mixed martial arts.

It's so easy to lose.

It's so easy to, even if you're a thousand-tone one favorite or a thousand-tone underdog, anybody can win when that cage door closes.

Absolutely.

You know?

Would you ever do power slop?

I would not.

I would not do power slap.

You know, obviously, I've been to it.

Have you been to?

Yeah, I've been.

I got nervous, dude.

Yeah, I mean, it's different, right?

You're just watching it and you're like, man, this guy, this guy is defenseless.

You know, it's like in fighting, it's obviously if I see the punch coming, I can at least

duck, dive, dodge, dick, do whatever it is, you know, with a dodge ball.

But yeah, man, having your hands behind your back and just gritting your teeth and hopefully closing your eyes and taking a slap is a tough hat off to those

yeah but it's fun to watch it's very fun to watch if you haven't been to a power slap fight or a power slap match it's it's an interesting interesting time absolutely um so i saw on your wikipedia this impressed me about you you were on honor roll every term yeah i you know i don't know if i'm necessarily the smartest guy but i i just knew it wasn't that hard to get It wasn't hard to get good grades.

I mean, I went to public school in High Ridge, Missouri.

There was a lot of other kids getting A's and B's.

Why couldn't I get A's and B's, right?

And then, and then in college, I think it was just,

I just thought it was, it was just disrespectful to me being on the team and being a leader on the team to not have good grades and not show up to class.

So I just, I'm just a guy who likes to try to do things right.

Yeah.

And obviously, you know, there's different intelligence levels and there's different, you know, some people are good at math, some people are good at arts, some people are good at literature, whatever it is, and we all have our strengths and weaknesses like we talked about earlier.

But I just thought, man, I know I can get A's and B's.

If I don't, it's just laziness.

So I don't want to ever exude laziness in any area of my life.

That interested me because there's a stigma with fighters that they're, and boxers, that they're not the smartest.

You know what I mean?

But you broke that mold.

Yeah.

I mean, I think

you get what you, you get what you put into this life in every area, you know, and we can sit back and act.

And definitely bad luck befalls us and bad circumstances or someone can screw you over and someone can take advantage of you.

All of those things happen.

And a lot of times in life, you can't make those things, you can't stop stop those things from happening.

We all are going to fall on bad times.

But for the most part, if you do the right thing, if you put a little extra effort in, if you do what you need to do and not what you want to do, you're ultimately going to get good outcomes.

So that was the way I saw it.

I was like,

I don't know if I have smarts.

I don't know how I have that much intelligence or that much

IQ, but I know I can work hard.

I know I can do the, do the, I can do the, the things that are asked of me and do more than was asked of me, study a little bit hard hard and probably get pretty good grades.

If your two kids went up to you and said they wanted to become fighters, what would your reaction be?

It's a good question.

I would definitely support it.

I'm definitely not pushing him into it.

You know, I got, you know, I'm looked at, I'm around little league guys all the time, right?

We're on football teams.

We're on baseball teams.

We're on basketball teams.

We're on soccer teams.

And I'm around the dads all the time.

I'm like, hey, man, so your kid doing jiu-jitsu?

Is he doing, you know, and I own a gym here in town called Nashville MMA.

So we have the mat space.

We got the coaches.

We got great programs.

But for me,

knowing that the sport of wrestling was too hard for me when I was that age, and I'm not condoning or I'm not

saying that anybody who is starting their kid wrestling at five is a bad thing.

But I just know it was tough for me.

So I would love for my kids to play all the team sports, learn how to move their body, learn how to play sports, learn how to get more athletic as they're growing and maturing.

But it's definitely going to be something that I want to get my sons into if they want to, if they desire, and maybe they don't.

You know, there's, it's hard being a coach's kid, right?

Right.

It's hard being a, you know, if it's, it's tough.

You watch kids on these teams and like their dad's the coach.

That kid, whether it's they hold themselves to too much of a higher standard or they got too much pressure on them or maybe the dad in their relationship is a little bit, you know, there's pressure added to it because he's coaching other kids, but also he's their kid.

And you see it.

I'm on YouTube and I'm on, I'm fighting in the case, I'm fighting on pay-per-view and like everybody knows who I am because of hand-to-hand combat.

So I don't want my sons to feel the first time my kids step on the mat,

they're going to be looked at differently than everyone else.

Oh, that's Michael Chandler's key.

The expectations, right?

Right.

You know, and so if all of a sudden they come to me and say, hey, you know, my buddy George or my buddy Rhett, hey, they want to start BJJ.

Can I do it?

Absolutely, bud.

Let's do it.

But I'm not going to be like, hey, dude.

Let's start learning BJJ now.

So you didn't like wrestling when you were super young.

Well, I started when I was five and I quit by the time I was eight.

It was just, it was too hard.

It was, you know, me out there in this little singlet wearing a headgear.

You know, it's too much for me.

It was too much pressure for a little kid who's supposed to be enjoying sports.

To me, I just want my sons to enjoy sports, whether it's sticks, whether it's balls, whether it's, you know, soccer, basketball, football.

Like, you win as a team, you lose it as a team.

It's not all on you.

And my son is hard on himself.

He lost his baseball game last night and he's like, we're the worst team ever.

And I struck out and I'm the worst.

And it's like, I love that he had, that he cares, but also he can't take the full responsibility for that because there was a bunch of errors and that the other team was good and it wasn't just him losing.

So I lost to a girl when I was like seven or eight years old.

And that's when I was like, dude, that's tough for a little, that's tough for a little kid, dude.

It's tough for a little boy.

Just lost to a girl, man.

How do you

hold your head up high and go back, go into school the next day after you lose to a girl, right?

Nothing against girls.

But it's tough, right, for a young kid like that.

I started back up as a freshman and I've been in love with hand-to-hand combat ever since.

I dedicated my life to it at 14 years old under Ron and Bob Wilhelm at Northwest High School.

And then I wrestled in college and then now I've been fighting for 16 years.

Love it, man.

How tough are these women in the UFC?

Could they take on just a regular dude?

Yeah, I think they would destroy them.

Well, I think they, obviously, depending on size, you know, like I, I think one of my favorite female fighters right now is Way Lee, the 125 champion.

But she weighs 130 pounds.

She's tiny.

She's like 5'1.

So size makes a big difference, obviously.

But man, you look at some of these girls like pound for pound, like same size.

They got skills.

They're tough.

They've been hit before.

A lot of people are tough guys, but have never been hit.

They don't know how they realize that they would either tuck their tail between their legs or it would turn into a fight-or-flight situation.

So, yeah, they're tough.

Were you scrappy at a young age?

Were you getting in a lot of fights?

I wasn't.

So that's a very interesting fact about me.

And everybody's got their different road, like why they fight.

I

had never been in a street fight.

Oh, wow.

A lot of fights in the wrestling room, you know, whether it be, hey, I'm clubbing you and I'm not really actually punching you, but like, this is escalating and coach breaks us up.

Or actually got into a couple kind of fights on the mats in college wrestling.

But no, man, I was always too afraid to get into trouble.

I really was.

Ever since a young age, I was like, man,

fighting would be really cool, but I'd rather just tuck my tail between my legs and diffuse the situation because I don't want to get written up, in school suspension, out of school suspension, be known as that guy.

And now I get paid for it.

It's kind of crazy.

Were your parents super strict?

strict they were they were good they they they were tough love um we didn't have a ton of structure in the house i mean my mom and dad worked two and three jobs my dad was a union carpenter and he would do side jobs on the weekends uh my mom would be up early My dad would be up early, go to work.

My mom would be up early, get the boys to school, then she would work all day till five and then work at my grandpa's restaurant from like six to midnight.

So it was like they were constantly working.

So they were, it wasn't because we didn't have a lot of structure, not because they didn't want to give us structure.

They were just constantly grinding grinding to keep food on the table.

Wow.

So me and my brothers got to do whatever we wanted a lot of times, man.

But you're young kids.

You're not really going to get in that much trouble.

We ran around in the woods, fell out of trees, built things, blew things up, killed animals, went hunting.

I guess that's what we did.

Do you think a big part of the reason you wanted to be successful was seeing the way your mothers were or your parents were kind of struggling?

Yeah, I do.

I mean,

I wanted to transcend that.

But everybody always talks about how hard I work and the discipline I have and the faith in myself and the faith in the process and all these things.

But I was just a byproduct of Mike and Betty Chandler, man.

They worked so hard and they never complained.

They never made excuses.

They never talked about their deficiencies.

They just like, yeah, well, they might complain a little bit about how tough things were, but they just kept on going.

Wow.

Every single day, my dad woke up at 5 a.m.

Every single day, my mom was up getting the boys getting us ready for school, making sure we had breakfast, making sure we were going to be on the bus on time.

And man, I always feel like I'm nothing compared to them when it comes comes to work ethic, when it comes to discipline, when it comes to what they tried to create inside of me.

And they did a dang good job raising me, me and my two brothers.

And I think I'm just a byproduct of that.

That's how I feel with my parents, man.

It's all perspective, too.

Because as a kid, I used to complain a lot and have victim mentality.

And then I see what my dad goes through.

He's six foot five, 97 pounds, super underfed on a farm, working 12 hours a day.

Mom came here from China with 20 bucks in her pocket, didn't speak English.

Goodness.

And I'm complaining about living in a middle class family.

Yeah, man, it's crazy.

And you also get that perspective, too, where obviously we have our gripes about our parents.

Dad was not a good dad because of this, this, and this.

And mom wasn't a good mom because of this, this, and this.

And they taught us this, and they should have taught us this.

And you have, you kind of go through that where you, for me, it was when I went to college and I started seeing all these other people from all walks of life and you get opened up to all these different things.

You're like, oh, man, I wish I was raised like that.

Or I wish my dad was more like that or mom was more like that.

Yeah.

But then a couple of years later, you have your own kids and then you realize, dude, I am failing every single day, right?

You know, being a dad and my wife being a mom, it's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do.

And I have to have a career and provide for the family.

And I have all the normal things that we all have to go through, right?

It's like, as a kid, you're just naive.

You don't know what you don't know.

And then you get a little bit older, you're like, man, I had awesome parents.

They were so, so good.

And yeah, they weren't perfect, but I know I'm not perfect.

So if I'm judging them by perfection, it's

a

unwinnable battle.

Unwinnable.

You can't compare people to perfection.

No, man.

And also just for me, just realizing that I am just a work in progress trying to be better every day.

As long as I care about my children and I love them and I'm trying my best, that's the best you can do.

Because I've laid my head on the pillow at night and just shamed myself for the thing I said or the thing I didn't do or the thing that I missed or, you know, and that's a tough battle, too.

As long as you give them safety, security, and they know that you love them and they know you're trying the best and you're able to admit as men, a lot of times we have trouble admitting them when we're wrong or saying sorry to our children.

I mean, just the other day, all the time I'm telling my son, hey, just so you know, like, I think I made a mistake here and I'm just trying to figure this thing out too.

Wow, you said that to your five-year-old son.

Yeah, well, my seven-year-old.

By seven-year-old.

Because I think it's an I want them to have that perspective that, hey, just because he's an authority figure and just because he's my dad and just because he's Superman doesn't mean that he knows exactly how to do it.

You know, it's like, hey, buddy, I wish I had a playbook that I could go to and say, okay, well, this is, this is the scenario.

Let me figure exactly out how to figure this out.

We just fail all the time.

I love that.

Because as kids, you see your parents as like such a high level and they're always right.

Yep.

But it shouldn't be like that, right?

No, no, definitely not.

And it's, and I think it takes the pressure off of us as parents, and it also takes the pressure off the children.

And yeah, they could maybe use it against us.

You know, I guess the fear would be like, well, he's going to use it against us.

And he's going to look at me less.

Your kids are never going to look at you less, ever, ever, ever.

When we were kids playing Cowboys and Indians and G.I.

Joes and superheroes and power ranges and all that stuff, all we wanted to do was be a superhero.

All I wanted to do was be the coolest dude, the hero of the story.

And I am that to Hap Chandler and Ace Chandler, you know?

And I think by admitting to them that I'm just trying to figure this thing out and I am going to make mistakes and I'm going to do things that I wish I wouldn't have done or, or not do things that I wish I would have done.

It's, it's, uh, I think it unlocks something.

It unlocks a love and a trust that is teaching them subconsciously what a man is.

And like I said, I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I'm trying my best.

That's life, man.

Yeah.

Do you let them come into fights or are you kind of worried about them seeing it?

So

my son Hap has been to a fight.

He was actually at the fight.

I knocked out Tony Ferguson.

Oh, nice.

He came into the cage with me.

So that was awesome.

My last fight, they did not go to.

This fight, they were going to go to.

I was going to have Hap there for sure to fight Connor.

But obviously, that fell through.

But I think Hap will come to the next one.

I think Ace might even come to the city that it's at.

I just don't know if we're going to actually bring him to the fight, mainly because it's going to be midnight.

So late.

That's late for them.

How's your mental health been throughout this journey, this 16-year fight career?

It's been good.

I think I took some losses that I needed to take to really take ownership of my mind.

I think, you know,

I vastly underperformed in wrestling.

I self-sabotaged myself.

I didn't believe in myself enough.

I had a small view of myself, and it held me back.

So whenever I took those

singlet straps off for the last time, I vowed to myself, hey, when I get into the sport of mixed martial arts, I'm not going to self-sabotage anymore.

I'm going to move forward like a champion.

And I did that.

I did that for nine, 10, or actually it was 12 fights.

It was 12-0.

I was working on everything physically, but I wasn't really working on my mindset.

I lost that first fight.

I lost my first fight to Eddie Alvarez.

And then I lost three fights in a row.

Wow.

It's 688 days without winning a fight because I was not prepared to lose.

I don't think we should focus on losing.

I don't think we should really acknowledge the fact.

You know, you should acknowledge the fact that losses are going to happen in life, but don't focus on them so much that they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

But you must be prepared to lose if it does come.

And I was not ready.

I lost that first fight.

I immediately forgot how good I was.

I immediately started blaming other people.

I immediately started put myself in this jail cell of self-pity and started just looking at the world differently and

starting to believe, you know, all the naysayers.

And I hid.

I hid from everybody.

The fight was up for fight of the year.

I didn't want to go accept the award.

I didn't want to do any interviews.

I didn't want to go out there.

And that was when I really started this mental health journey of realizing that you are what you are and where you are because of what has gone inside of your ears, in between your ears.

And

I can do all the push-ups and do all the reps and do all the sparring things, but all I'm doing is building up a bigger, faster, stronger, sub-par version of the man that I was created to be if I'm not truly believing it in my mind.

So I've kind of fixed all that.

And I've, and I've been on a constant quest of

mindset training every single day since then and and uh you know i i believe that this sport yeah it's physical and you see it all play out inside the cage but it's really what the fighter is thinking and the view that he has of himself that carries him into getting his hand raised or losing because a man or a woman can't consistently perform in a manner that is inconsistent with the way that they see themselves.

So if you don't see yourself as a champion, you're probably not going to get there.

Or maybe you do get there once and then it's and very very quickly fall because you didn't truly believe it.

That's so interesting, man, because you see fighters when they lose once and they never look the same after.

Yeah, it's tough, right?

I mean, I, and I did that.

The biggest thing for me was the, the, uh, the embarrassment and the hiding, right?

I, I make it a point every single time.

So there's some good friends of mine, Taylor LaWan and Will Compton.

They have busing with the boys here in Nashville.

Monday after my fights, no matter what, that's probably where I'm going because whether I win or I lose, I'm showing showing up on that bus because we can either celebrate the win or I can sit there with blood coming down my face and a black eye and my nose is all stuffed up from getting punched in it and traveling and I can sit there and we can talk about the loss.

And yeah,

it's for

It's to show people how to overcome loss.

And yeah, it's to be on a cool platform.

And yeah, it's to go out there and do something that a lot of people don't do.

But it's very selfish too.

It's me unlocking and taking away the power of that loss.

Because you go home and you lock yourself in your house and you don't take the phone calls and you don't hang out with friends and you just sit there and sit there in that jail cell of self-pity.

It's only going to just continue to deteriorate you as a human being.

So I go out there right away and I wear it on my sleeve and say, yeah, this is what happened and this is how it went.

And yeah, this is what I'm feeling.

Yeah, I cried.

Yeah, I'm in pain.

Yeah, this is, and just talk about it.

Because when you acknowledge it, it takes away all the power.

Wow.

You know, and that's, that's, I've made that a, uh,

a tradition every single fight, whether you're doing it, busting with the boys or it's something else.

I'm doing interviews because, and it's really selfish.

It's for me to go and unlock and take the power away from that loss so I can just move past it.

Yeah, you own it.

And these days, it's even tougher for athletes because of social media.

So you're seeing clips of yourself getting knocked out on Twitter when you log in.

Gosh, man.

Yeah, it's tough.

I mean, the social media is a tough thing to get on because it's just your fights constantly being talked about.

And it's that's one of those beautiful slash painful things about the sport, right?

You go out there and you get the win, and or that my fight with Tony Ferguson, man, that kick.

Yeah, it was, it made Sports Center top 10, and it was, it was like,

it was all over the world.

It went absolutely viral.

So it's very easy for me to sit there and be like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

Oh, the rock, the other rock posted a video playing this guy.

And that, oh my gosh, Mark Wahlberg said that.

And you're like, oh, man, this is awesome.

But on the flip side of that coin, you can't enjoy all of that without also realizing that, man, people are going to talk about your loss too.

And every single time you see it, it's going to be painful.

But it's also just, if you're going to fail, fail while daring greatly.

And I would much rather be the man in the arena taking chances,

throwing myself into the fire, putting myself out there than living a life of mediocrity,

of chosen mediocrity.

We can all choose whether we want to just do nothing and not pour into our gifts and not take chances.

And that's fine.

There's nothing wrong with that.

It's just you also can't expect your soul to continue to blossom into the man or woman you're supposed to be.

I want to end off with Gary Brecca and 10X Health.

Yes.

How much that has impacted your life?

It is awesome, man.

This last camp, as I said, was the best camp of my life.

And I think it had a lot to do with me doing the superhuman protocol the entire time.

I took my genetic test.

Every single day,

it was another thing that I could check off, like check the box off the list of I did something extra today that I know not a lot of guys are doing, if any of them are doing.

So I would do the 10X Pro Plunge, Cold Plunge, hop on the EWAT, the bike, do 15 minutes on the pimp mat and the red light bed.

Man, just obviously I train hard.

We've talked about this.

I do the right things.

I eat correctly.

I live a champion lifestyle, but a lot of guys do that.

My next opponent, whoever it is, he's doing that.

It's about getting that 1% little extra edge, right?

And adding the oxygen and the red light and the pimp.

I mean, it's...

It's taken my game to a whole nother level, the mental clarity that I have, the energy that I have, then the recovery.

At 38 years old, man, I was just with a couple fighters who I won't name, but like they're my age.

And they're like, dude, so you're telling me right now, like you, you, you can get down on your knees and you can wrestle without knee pads and you can do this.

And you can, I'm like, yeah,

you can't.

He's like, dude, no.

I do a wrestling practice and I can't walk for like a week.

And I'm like, oh, man, that's tough.

You know, and some of it is, you know, the wear and tear of our bodies and the profession that we chose.

But a lot of it has to do with the fact that I just, I believe I've got these two arms and these two legs and this body to be able to squeeze every ounce of talent out of it while I can.

And 10x has been a huge cornerstone.

I love it, man.

You'll be fighting in your 40s, I think.

I could if I wanted to.

It's debatable whether I would want to.

I mean, at some point, you got to realize that because the checks are going to keep getting bigger and the lights are going to keep getting brighter.

But at some point, the most important thing that I will ever be in in my entire life is dad and husband.

And

fighting in a cage is really, really cool.

And Madison Square Garden, pay-per-view, and all these things.

But man, being able to play baseball in the front yard with my son is even more important.

Wow.

So I think I could physically.

physically, I could fight it in my 40s, well into my 40s, but I'll hang it up before then.

So you're thinking about retirement?

I mean, I'm definitely not thinking about retirement at this juncture right now.

I think

I've got five hard, good, awesome, massive fights

for sure.

But, you know, you talk about fighting well into your 40s.

You're talking about like 10 more fights.

That's true.

I don't think I have that many.

I feel that, man.

I love the honesty.

Michael, closing messages.

Anything you want to close off with here?

No, man.

Thank you for the opportunity and the platform.

And

I just believe we were created for so much more than we could think or imagine.

And I'm living proof of that.

I was a small guy from a small town who was taught to do small things.

And somehow I ended up on this huge platform and this huge stage and this huge life that I'm living.

And it's just a testament to if you keep on going, you do the right thing and you operate with integrity, anything is possible.

So you guys keep doing that.

You just inspired millions of people.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Of course.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you next time.