Former UFC lightweight champion, , has weighed in on and Michael Chandler’s upcoming clash. Alvarez, who has fought both men, believes the fight is a ‘mismatch’ stacked heavily in McGregor’s favour and sees a knockout as an inevitability.

The only chance Alvarez gives Chandler is on the ground but doesn’t expect the American to implement much grappling into his game plan.

“If I had to guess, Mike Chandler doesn’t wrestle,” Alvarez said on The MMA Hour. “If he stands with Conor, Conor’s going to knock him out. It’s a mismatch. Mike Chandler’s defence sucks. He doesn’t have good defence, boxing. He throws bombs, but Conor’s way too fast, way too quick to get hit with anything Mike Chandler is throwing. So I feel like, Mike should wrestle and wrestle quickly, and use that. And if he doesn’t, it’s going to be a bad night.”

Chandler and McGregor are set to fight each other in the Octagon later this year but for now, they are competing as coaches on the latest season of The Ultimate Fighter. According to UFC president Dana White, both men got into a heated during the filming of the show which nearly resulted in them trading blows early.

“The stuff that just happened shouldn’t happen,” White added. “I’m getting old boys, I’m getting old. I would have been in there sooner back in the old days, but yeah, not good.”

Before the fight can be made though, McGregor will have to undergo six months of random drug testing with the UFC’s official anti-doping partner USADA. McGregor has been out of the USADA testing pool since the third quarter of 2021 and is yet to re-enrol to the programme.

He had hoped to return to action sooner by exercising a loophole that allows athletes to be granted permission to fight again after just two clean tests. However, USADA has since amended the ruling.