Michael Chandler on WWE Raw promo: ‘I was thrown into the fire’

Michael Chandler’s WWE Raw call out was a last-minute decision.

Chandler talked to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour about his experience on Monday’s show, where he called out Conor McGregor. According to Chandler, the promo was approved only a few minutes before the segment aired live.

“Two minutes before, they said, ‘Hey, they’re going to put the camera on you.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you give me that microphone?’” he recalled. “And they said, ‘Hold on, let me run it up the flagpole real quick.’ And then about a minute later, they said, ‘Hey, you’re going on in a minute and you’re going to get the microphone if you want the microphone,’ and then magic happened…less than five minutes [of notice]. There was nothing prepared. Nothing. I was thrown into the fire. Smacked myself a couple of times and then we went.”

Chandler said he met with Triple H after the segment, saying that WWE “liked what they saw”. He also opened the door to more future crossovers.

“We will see,” he said. “Obviously there’s a crossover there. Ton of respect for the wrestlers, the brass there. They have a ton of respect for the UFC. It was really cool being there, watching other athletes and entertainers and performers, and [them] being huge fans of mixed martial arts, and me of them. So it was really cool. There’s a lot of synergy there and the sky’s the limit when it comes to TKO Group and what we can do in the crossover, and yeah, man, it’s probably just the very beginning.”

Dana White recently said he hoped to get Conor McGregor fighting by the end of 2024. He hasn’t fought since a July 2021 loss to Dustin Poirier after breaking his tibia.