Chandler defends McGregor after UFC 329 collapse: 'He's not a quitter'

Michael Chandler has come to Conor McGregor’s defence following the Irishman’s shocking 69-second exit at UFC 329, rejecting widespread speculation that McGregor entered Saturday’s main event at T-Mobile Arena with a pre-existing injury and no intention of competing seriously.

McGregor’s long-awaited comeback — his first UFC appearance since breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier in July 2021 — lasted barely a minute against Max Holloway before the bout was waved off, leaving the Las Vegas crowd in stunned silence. The abrupt ending quickly fuelled online theories that McGregor had been cleared to fight despite already being compromised, and that UFC officials may have knowingly allowed a non-competitive bout to proceed.

Chandler, who has tracked McGregor’s career closely over the years, addressed the speculation directly in a video posted to Instagram. He described watching McGregor’s leg buckle repeatedly in the opening seconds — on a kick, a second kick, and then a punch — and argued the sequence was consistent with an acute injury sustained in the fight itself rather than a pre-planned exit.

“A guy like Conor who comes out in the first three seconds, jumps across the cage, turns his body, throws a kick, lands weird, leg buckles,” Chandler said. “Then throws another kick, leg buckles. Throw a punch, leg buckles, and everybody’s trying to figure out was Conor injured prior to the fight?”

Chandler flatly rejected the notion that McGregor — whose flaws he acknowledged are “well-documented over the past 15 years in this sport” — would deliberately shortchange fans. “One thing he is not, he’s not a quitter. One thing he is not, is a bamboozler,” he said.

The 38-year-old also pushed back against theories implicating the UFC itself, arguing the organisation had no incentive to stage a fight it knew would end in seconds. “The UFC is not the type of organization that’s going to have conversations behind closed doors and say, ‘Hey, it’s all good, man. We’re going to get everybody hooked in and then you’re going to bounce out one minute in,’” Chandler said. “That’s just not what they do, it’s not how they operate business.”

Chandler added a broader point about the unpredictable physical toll of cage fighting, noting that the body can give way without warning once competition begins — a reality that, in his view, explains what unfolded rather than any conspiracy.