{"id":279130,"date":"2018-06-22T11:32:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T18:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=279130"},"modified":"2018-06-22T11:32:05","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T18:32:05","slug":"report-michael-chandlers-bellator-contract-nearing-expiration-free-agency-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/michael-chandler\/report-michael-chandlers-bellator-contract-nearing-expiration-free-agency-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"Report | Michael Chandler&#8217;s Bellator contract nearing expiration, free agency possible"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to a report from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mma\/story\/_\/id\/23874276\/michael-chandler-bellator-contract-set-expire-imminently\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESPN<\/a>, former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler&#8217;s current Bellator contract is set to expire &#8220;imminently.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This news has generated a tidal wave of excitement among fans who are interested in seeing Chandler, long considered one of the world&#8217;s premier lightweights, move to the UFC&#8217;s Octagon where a bevy of fresh matchups await.\u00a0According to ESPN&#8217;s report, however, Chandler and his team are currently engaged in &#8220;productive&#8221; negotiations with Bellator, which would seem to imply a high likelihood of his re-signing with the promotion. That said, the report also mentions that Chandler is willing to see what other promotions are prepared to offer too.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, Chandler stated during an April appearance on <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.com\/2018\/04\/michael-chandler-plans-to-re-sign-with-bellator-but-i-beat-khabib-nurmagomedov-10-times-out-of-10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MMAjunkie Radio<\/a> that he doesn&#8217;t imagine he&#8217;ll leave the Bellator roster when his contract ends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have no intentions of leaving Bellator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens, but to me, I don\u2019t think there would be any other interest for me to go anywhere else besides Bellator or the UFC,\u201d he added. \u201cObviously, I\u2019m very happy with where I\u2019m at right now. But there\u2019s not a day that goes by that I don\u2019t constantly think about this career that I have moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Where do you think the former Bellator champ Michael Chandler will wind up?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 6\/22\/2018. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a report from ESPN, former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler&#8217;s current Bellator contract is set to expire &#8220;imminently.&#8221; This news has generated a tidal wave of excitement among fans who are interested in seeing Chandler, long considered one of the world&#8217;s premier lightweights, move to the UFC&#8217;s Octagon where a bevy of fresh [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":275858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10485],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Report | Michael Chandler&#039;s Bellator contract nearing expiration, free agency possible | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler is reportedly on the cusp of free agency, as his Bellator contract will soon expire.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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