The original co-main event for UFC 262 was set to be between Nate Diaz and Leon Edwards. Unfortunately, the fight has been postponed due to a minor injury that Diaz picked up while training.
Chandler, who will be facing Charles Oliveira for the vacant UFC lightweight title, spoke to Farah Hannoun of MMAjunkie.com and gave his take on Diaz pulling out the welterweight co-main event.
“Yeah, I mean anytime you can share an event with Nate Diaz — he and I are not friends, I don’t think we’d ever be friends, I don’t think that we are very like-minded individuals — but there’s no doubt he brings eyeballs, he brings the hype. And that’s the catch-22 of Nate Diaz. He could have overshadowed the new guy. I’m the new guy, just got here. I’m okay that he fell off the card — well I’m not ok, it was an injury, I never want to wish an injury on anybody — but you get what I’m saying, it was just postponed four weeks. So he’s still going to get his shot and he’s going to get a shot at a top-three guy and he could end up getting a title shot if he wins this fight,” Michael Chandler said.
“So either way, it would have been great either way. All I know is, this whole thing has been orchestrated by a very, very, very sovereign higher power than me and the UFC since I signed with the UFC because everything has worked out perfectly for me thus far. I just feel extremely blessed to be part of this whole event, to be part of this whole thing. Whether Nate Diaz is on the card or not, it’s still a phenomenal card from top to bottom. The co-main event is now Tony Ferguson vs. Beneil Dariush, a very tough lightweight bout, so we will see how it all unfolds. All I know is I’m going to show up swinging on May 15.”
Diaz vs Edwards is still expected to take place at UFC 263, but it is not clear if the fight will be the co-main event of that card.
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