UFC 303: McGregor vs. Chandler may not hold as planned

Just less than three weeks to the highly anticipated return of Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler at UFC 303, reports coming in this week are raising doubts that the fight might hold as planned. The crux of the report was given by an MMA insider, Ariel Helwani, in a recent sit down with MMA Hour, that organizers of the event are currently searching for possible replacements for both fighters or one of them, depending on how things go. 

June 29 has been looked forward to for months now as the day McGregor returns to the octagon after three years of absence. A very controversial fighter, McGregor’s retirement announcement that followed his last fight in 2021 was met with mixed reactions as so many people did not want him to retire yet, which is why news of his comeback has had a lot of MMA fans jubilant. But it seems their jubilation may have to pause for a while. 

The first sign that the fight may not hold was when a press conference for the event scheduled to hold in Ireland last week was postponed indefinitely. Although the UFC has not communicated the reason for this postponement, it has not stopped speculations from sources close to the industry, and the verdict is that things are not looking good. 

According to Helwani in a podcast on Wednesday, the UFC is already on the lookout for a plan B ahead of UFC 303: “On Tuesday, I reported that the UFC was sending out feelers, they were reaching out to fighters and managers to see who could possibly be available to either replace the fight — meaning two new fighters — or step in and replace one of the fighters involved to fight on this card. Obviously, the fighter we’re talking about is Conor McGregor because if not, why would Chandler be ready to go on a plane to Dublin?

“I would say it’s hanging on, and the UFC is working very, very hard right now to figure out a Plan B. The Plan B could be someone stepping in to fight Chandler; the Plan C could be a whole new fight.”

Again, all of these might be speculations, and things would proceed as planned, but it’s still valuable to keep this in mind while waiting for an official statement from the UFC.