Michael Chandler has received what he wanted from Bellator MMA as he recently signed a new contract with the Viacom-owned promotion and getting the rematch that he has wanted for over a year now.
The former champ is now preparing for a rematch against Bellator lightweight champion Brent Primus at the upcoming Bellator 212 event that goes down later this year.
Back at Bellator NYC in June of 2017, Chandler lost his lightweight title to Primus via TKO due to an injury. Chandler was expected to challenge Primus for the title at Bellator 197. However, Primus pulled out of the fight citing a knee injury. This led to Chandler fighting Brandon Girtz at the event.
Patricky Freire is likely to fight the winner of this upcoming title fight but if it’s up to Chandler, he’s not interested in making a third fight happen with the longtime Bellator stud.
“I will say I would prefer not to fight Patricky ‘Pitbull’ for the third time and finish the trilogy of me crushing him for a third time,” he said to MMAJunkie. “How many times do you get crushed by a guy and get a third crack at him? So I don’t know why he thinks he deserves to fight me again.”
Chandler has two wins over Freire by decision in May of 2011 and TKO in June of 2016. When it comes to Primus, the former champ knows that he would want to do a third fight and is willing to do it but wouldn’t be thrilled.
“When I go out there and finish ‘Brett Preeble’ in the first round in December, I think he’s going to be asking for a rematch,” he said. “But I don’t think ‘Bryce’ deserves a rematch. If Bellator wants me to fight ‘Ben’ again, I’ll do it for a third time.”
“I still to this day have been saying that I don’t think I’ll fight ‘Bryce Prebus’ in December. I think he’ll pull out of the fight and he’ll get stripped, and I’ll have to fight someone else. I do not have any faith of him stepping into the cage.”
This fight is slated to take place on December 14, 2018 at the Neal S. Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, Hawaii. The preliminary card will air online at 7:00 pm EST while the main card will air on DAZAN at 9:00 PM EST.
