Michael Chandler Gives Brent Primus No Credit For His Bellator NYC Loss

In an interview with MMA Junkie, Michael Chandler continued to say that it was a nerve injury to his leg after rolling his ankle, not anything that lightweight champion Brett Primus did, that resulted in his loss at Bellator NYC. The fight was stopped after Chandler was deemed unfit to continue and the belt was awarded to Primus. Primus credits his own leg kicks caused the injury. Here are highlights:

On Primus thinking he caused the injury: “Sorry if Brent feels that way. But all I can say is I don’t remember any kind of floppy food syndrome. I didn’t notice any of that until I rolled the ankle. The doctors I spoke to said that makes complete sense. So that’s what I’m going with, and that’s where I’m at. Obviously, Brent thinks it’s from kicks. I think he literally only threw one leg – I mean, the fight was 2 minutes and 22 seconds long. The injury happened within 30 seconds of the fight. I don’t know if you guys remember how many kicks were thrown, but how do you do nerve damage, or shut down a nerve, or kill a nerve with two kicks? I don’t even think it’s humanly possible. I’ve been kicked in my leg 70 (thousand) times in my career and way harder than that. So I just don’t see a correlation.”

On Primus knowing he didn’t earn the belt: “That’s how he’s trying to prove to himself that he is the champion. You can tell by his antics after the fight. You can tell by how he acted out of character, how he wouldn’t even look over in my direction, wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. Didn’t even have the class to come over to a man who was sitting on a stool with a possible broken leg and say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry it happened like this, I’ll see you in the rematch.’ It was almost as if he knew he didn’t deserve that win. He knew that he didn’t deserve to have that belt around his waist. I think he’s a little bit sad. A little bit butt-hurt that his ‘championship run’ has been taken away from him, and he has zero credit. He’s gotten zero credit for beating me – which he should. Whatever, it was an injury.”

On believing he could have won the fight: “Let’s be honest: The ref really screwed up the situation. You can’t just stop a fight and call a timeout. I was going to beat Brent Primus on one leg. I had already proven that, that the only substantial damage done in that fight – besides me rolling my own ankle – was when I dropped him and had him rocked and almost knocked him out on one leg. So if this was a 13th Century, Me vs. Him, standing in a field, as vikings, and I’m on one leg: I still win that fight to the death, 10 times out of 10. And that’s why Brent Primus is trying to make this big campaign for, ‘Oh, the leg kicks caused this, I’m the champion.’”