Conor McGregor's announcement of Michael Chandler fight a "Hail Mary pass" to push UFC into booking it, suggests Chael Sonnen

Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor has been working on a three-fight plan to get back in the UFC title picture.

According to the Irishman, he wants to compete against rival TUF 31 coach Michael Chandler in a comeback fight in December. He then intends to follow it up with matches against BMF champion Justin Gaethje and a trilogy fight against Nate Diaz.

The ‘Notorious’ fighter is campaigning hard to bring the Michael Chandler fight to fruition. In a recent tweet, McGregor posted a screenshot allegedly taken by a fan from the UFC Fight Pass website. The screenshot claimed that the December 16 PPV event, UFC 296, will feature McGregor vs. Chandler as the main event.

MMA analyst and retired fighter Chael Sonnen sees this as McGregor’s desperate attempt to push the UFC into booking this fight. In an eight-minute-long video on his YouTube channel, Sonnen elaborated on his argument:

"It’s been done before, and when it’s done, the athlete is making a Hail Mary pass to get the fight. The theory behind it is if I go out and I make an announcement, and I can make enough people believe that it’s true, then it spreads, and you now have how many dollars in effectiveness in marketing?"

He added:

"Why would you possibly unwind that? Why would you possibly go to your consumer and tell them that they’ve been duped? You instead would do whatever you could behind the scenes to go out and make it true."

Watch Sonnen make the claim from the 2:46 mark of the video below:

Conor McGregor has not competed professionally since losing the July 2021 trilogy fight against Dustin Poirier due to a gruesome leg break. While his comeback would bring a great deal of financial implications for the UFC, the Irishman’s situation with USADA is likely to postpone his return fight in 2024.

However, the UFC could allow him to compete by requesting an exemption. That said, it’s not clear yet if the screenshot shared by Conor McGregor was indeed an accidental leak from the UFC or a figment of a skilled graphic designer's imagination.

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Michael Chandler hints that the fight against Conor McGregor is in the works

Michael Chandler has always claimed he is in the UFC for a "good time" and not a "long time." The former Bellator lightweight champion has achieved mixed success from a competitive standpoint with a 2-3 record inside the octagon. However, he has been on the must-watch list of fans due to the sheer entertainment value of his fights.

Following a third-round submission loss to Dustin Poirier last November, Chandler is rooting for the biggest fight of his career against the Irishman. He recently posted a few gym photos on X, formerly Twitter, and hinted that the fight against Conor McGregor is indeed in the works.

“Going to be the best camp of my life… The time off has been needed,” Chandler wrote in his post.

There hasn’t been an official statement from the UFC regarding the finalization of this fight at the time of this article’s publishing. However, Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler’s comments suggest that we might be heading in the direction of this mega-fight.