Issue 093

October 2012

New sport, new belt, new team, new star. Undefeated Michael Chandler may have rushed out of nowhere to conquer the Bellator 155lb division – but he’s not about to slow down now.

Most athletes get into professional sports with the dream of one day becoming, not only a champion, but one of the greatest. It’s a goal so many set yet so very few ever reach. It doesn’t just take a special kind of athlete, but a special kind of human being to have the intensity, tenacity and, perhaps most importantly, the talent to be remembered forever as ‘one of the greats.’ Michael Chandler gets this as much as any fighter in MMA, and he’s committed himself to chasing his legacy.

In an exclusive interview with Fighters Only, the new Bellator lightweight champion tells us about his incredibly rapid journey from mixed martial arts newbie to being one of the very best 155lb fighters in the world in next to no time. 

When talking, Chandler comes across as a young man who is enveloped in his own energy. All he wants to do is train and improve himself. For someone who is only 26 years old, it’s not difficult to think he could become easily distracted, especially when he lives in Sin City itself. However, if you ask him about potential distractions he simply scoffs. Distractions went out of the window a long time ago. Ever since he found his first love: wrestling.

“I think the greatest thing about wrestling is that if you want to be the best, you have to be the most disciplined person,” Chandler says. “Myself and another guy didn’t do all the partying [at college]. We focused on wrestling. Every day in the summer we were working out, going to wrestling camps, following the older guys and doing what they did and we were the two that were successful.

“For me, wrestling gave me discipline in every aspect of my life. I had to juggle schoolwork with practice, having good eating habits, cutting weight, doing extra practices because I needed that edge over my opponents. I wanted to suck every single ounce of opportunity that I had out of my five-year period of wrestling in college.”

Whilst his young life as a wrestler undoubtedly set him on the road to MMA superstardom, it’s only half of what keeps Chandler so grounded as a fighter. The other half, just as important in shaping the man he is today, is his family. For some families, it’s hard to give attention to all the children, especially if they all excel at sports. However, that was far from the case with the Chandlers.

“On my mom’s side, she has six brothers and sisters, so it’s a huge Italian family. Every single holiday we’d get together and there’d be like 60 people – and that’s just on her side. My mom and dad were just really supportive,” he recalls. 

“They gave us so many opportunities. They always made sure we got to school. Always made sure we were getting good grades. They always made sure we had enough money to go to summer wrestling camps or summer baseball leagues.”

With the foundations clearly already there for Chandler to be a young man with drive and ambition, plus his amateur wrestling pedigree, it made perfect sense he would make the switch over to mixed martial arts just as other wrestlers had done before him.

However, MMA had to be pushed into his mind by some other talented wrestlers turned mixed martial artists before he considered taking it up himself.

Chandler admits: “I wasn’t really interested in MMA until my senior year. Then Tyron Woodley (Strikeforce 170lb’er) came out first and fought some amateur fights, Ben Askren (Bellator 170lb’er) started doing the same. I knew that I, at least, wanted to give it a try. I started training a little bit with Tyron and he’s obviously had success and so has Ben.”

And so has he. Despite only being a professional for three years, Chandler’s rise to the top of MMA has been meteoric. For so many, MMA debuts are often sloppy, badly organized experiences, but for Chandler, at least, it only helped him decide that mixed martial arts was the right career for him. 

“My first fight was down at Lake Ozark, August 8th 2009,” he recalls. “He was another wrestler who wrestled at the junior college level. I went out there, took him down and literally threw like 200 punches until I got a TKO. I didn’t throw a punch until I got a takedown (laughs).

“I don’t know where I got it from, but I just really enjoy beating people up (laughs). I like to think that I’m a pretty nice guy, but when that cage door closes, someone is getting a win and someone is getting a loss, so I’ve got to do whatever I can to get that win.”

After a couple of fights in Strikeforce at the end of 2009 and into 2010, Chandler, then undefeated in three contests, was offered a contract by the promotion. However, the lure of Bellator Fighting Championships’ tournament format – which offered up a quicker chance at a title shot – also allowed him the chance to join ranks with his friend and fellow champion, Askren.

After two non-tourney wins to close out 2010, he blazed through last year’s Bellator lightweight tournament, defeating the likes of Marcin Held, Lloyd Woodard and pre-tournament favorite Patricky ‘Pitbull’ Freire. And he topped that in November by defeating Eddie Alvarez to become Bellator’s new 155lb champion. In what was considered one of the fights of the year, and arguably the most entertaining fight in Bellator history, Chandler shined. Which is ironic, really, as when asked about what he remembers from the fight, he can recall nothing.

“Honestly, I don’t really remember much ever about any fights. I kind of blackout,” he says. “I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember punching him. I don’t remember getting punched. I don’t remember the submission at the end. I don’t even remember jumping on the cage afterwards. The only way I can remember it is by watching it on YouTube.”

Now armed with a record of 10-0, youth on his side, and the title wrapped around his waist, Chandler still has it all to gain, but even more to lose. With all the pressures of being a champion, he’s managed to surround himself with the same people, most notably striking coach Gil Martinez. For the majority of his career, he trained at the famous Xtreme Couture, with the likes of Gray Maynard, Evan Dunham, Jay Hieron and so many more.

However, when a chance to train with Alliance MMA came up during his latest training camp (he fought and defeated Akihiro Gono by knockout at Bellator 67) it was an opportunity, he says, he couldn’t turn down. “Before the team got to Las Vegas, my coach Gil [Martinez] said, ‘Hey, Eric [Del Fierro] is bringing the team over to Vegas. You should train with them,’ and I was down for it,” he explains. 

“On my first day, during the sparring sessions, Eric said to me, ‘You’re going with him, you’re going with him, you’re going to sit this next one out, and then you’re going with him,’ I was like ‘Wow, this is cool.’ I literally show up every day and I kind of know what we’re going to be doing, but I’m not particularly sure. I just come in and they tell me what to do. It’s certainly the closest set-up I’ve seen in MMA that was like a college wrestling team.”

And there’s another man, besides from coach Del Fierro, who is synonymous with Alliance MMA, that being reigning UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz. When asked about the champ, Chandler only had praise for him.

“It’s cool to know that you’ve got a guy like Dominick Cruz who was on the phone to Del Fierro right before practice, knows what needs to happen and takes that leadership role and nobody questions it. Everyone realizes Dominick is a world champion and has been with Del Fierro the longest. He’s like a team captain on a wrestling team,” he states.

Chandler is a man with the entire world at his feet. He’s got the Bellator title, a new team at Alliance, a soon-to-be-announced fight with judo Olympian Rick Hawn, and he’s quickly becoming one of the most familiar figures in the Bellator promotion. For most, such success so quickly would come as a surprise, but for Chandler this is something he believes was destined to happen.

He adds: “It’s not that I think that I’m better than everybody. I just know that if I can go out there, put my hands on somebody, pick em’ up and put em’ down, and if I don’t get knocked out or put in a submission, then I’m winning the fight.”