Aaron Mckenzie weighs in on Conor McGregor, Michael Chandler beef, teases more to come (Video)
Caution: Spoilers ahead!
When Conor McGregor told Michael Chandler "You'll do what you're told" during the first episode of The Ultimate Fighter season 31, you could right away feel tension so thick that you could cut with a knife.
Now, on the most recent edition of the show, episode six, things seemed to get to a state of full-on enmity, as the two had an altercation in the UFC APEX's Octagon in front of UFC President Dana White and the TUF contestants.
The altercation saw Chandler and McGregor exchange words before McGregor shoved Chandler. Before more could be done, White ran into the Octagon to make cooler heads prevail.
Aaron McKenzie, one of Team McGregor's lightweight prospects, got to see things play out as it all went down in filming. And McKenzie tells FanSided MMA's Amy Kaplan that there was plenty more that happened that the home audience didn't get to see.
"They actually left out most of our reactions because a few of us jumped the rail and went that way," McKenzie told FanSided MMA. "A couple of guys went towards the cage. I think Ro [Roosevelt Roberts] got really close; a couple of other guys got really close. Nate [Jennerman] jumped in. As soon as Nate jumped over, the commission grabbed Nate and was like 'No, no, no.'
"So it was kind of funny. I am not going to get in trouble for anybody else; I will not. So I stayed up there and just kind of watched it all shake out, but it was It was wild for a minute, and it kept escalating."
Exclusive: Aaron McKenzie discusses in-cage blow-up between beefing Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler on recent The Ultimate Fighter episode
The in-Octagon incident seemed to come ultimately out of frustration following Lee Hammond's second-round submission loss to Kurt Holobaugh. The 5-0 Hammond, Team McGregor's No. 1 ranked lightweight prospect and a training partner of McGregor's at SBG Ireland, was in control for most of the fight until a comeback from Holobaugh, who has had two previous stints in the UFC.
As a result, Team McGregor has now dropped to 0-6 in first-round matchups on TUF 31 and is now two fights away from being completely swept by the veteran fighters of Team Chandler.
McKenzie, who lost his first-round matchup to Austin Hubbard earlier in the season, additionally hinted that the friction and hostility between Chandler and McGregor may prolong as the second half of the season plays out.
"The tensions keep boiling up, like we're down six fights now," McKenzie said. "It wears on you because it's just the little jabs, right? It's 'That's 5-0!' and '6-0! How are you going to come back from that?' You can't come back from that. It's never going to be even at this point.
"Chandler and Conor definitely got under each other's skin after a little while, and it's starting to show here in these next couple of episodes."
Meanwhile, we have seen Chandler on the show frustrated by what appears to be several instances of no-showing. McGregor has notably missed weigh-in days and wasn't present for the negotiations between his side and Chandler's side for the rescheduled Trevor Wells vs. Timur Valiev fight.
Chandler stated in episode six that he considers McGregor's no-showing disrespectful to his team, who are all prospects who have never been signed to the UFC before, and feels he's doing them a diservice.
When asked about how much McGregor was actually around, McKenzie admitted that there were some times when McGregor wasn't around but ultimately appreciated the time he had with the former champ-champ and his team.
He adds that McGregor wasn't absent as much as the show paints him out to be.
"I believe, not being on the season he did the first time, I'm almost positive he's there more for us," McKenzie said. "He's that every single evening practice pretty much, except for three or four days he missed after my fight. And the day after "Wonderboy" [Stephen Thompson] was there, he was gone for three or four days for filming. But other than that, he was there every day pretty much. He was at night practices. He was there ready to go. He was involved in practice. He was coaching. He was training with us. So he was there a lot more I think than the cameras are actually making him out to be.
"But I'll tell you straight up he wasn't at a lot of morning practices. They probably count the morning practices on one hand that he was at, but they were always set up to be good with one of the other coaches. There was never a moment where we were like, 'Okay, well what are we doing?' The morning sessions we knew were always gonna be run by somebody else, and he would have most of the evening sessions."
Aaron McKenzie discusses interactions with Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler during filming of The Ultimate Fighter, what's next after show
McKenzie said that through getting to know both McGregor and Chandler through the show and after filming, he would have been happy with the experience of working with either UFC pro, regardless of how the season has been playing out for Team McGregor so far.
He furthermore states that some of the criticism coming online against McGregor for his apparent lack of care or appearances at TUF weigh-ins is overblown.
"I love Conor's team; I really did. I thought they did a great job," McKenzie said. "I believe that they are very knowledgeable in the sport of MMA. Obviously, they were with him for his entire run up and he got to the highest you could possibly get, right? So I felt very happy getting to train with him and learn from them. Would I have loved getting to with Mike, too? Yeah. When I went in there, I knew I would have been happy on either team, and getting to know both of them after the fact, and even on the show, I came away feeling the same way. I could have been on either team and been very happy.
"So I'm very content with what did happen and who I got and his involvement level. It didn't bother me like the people that are online and they have the jabs. 'Oh, Conor hasn't been at any weigh-ins!' Honestly, half the time my coaches aren't even at weigh-ins. It happens a lot more than people think it does because it's tough for people to get there sometimes. And weigh-ins were during the daytime. So that was when we didn't see him as much. I don't know if he was filming all the time. I don't know if he was sleeping, or maybe he was doing his own training, I don't know."
As far as his experiences with Chandler goes, McKenzie says he would always say hello to Chandler in the transition time between the teams' practices. But nothing topped what happened after his fight with Hubbard.
"I went to shake his hand or to bump his hand and walk on by and tell him 'What's up?' He stopped me, shook my hand hard, and told me I was I was a warrior," McKenzie said. "He reiterated it and then after that, we talked a few more times, and he just said a lot of nice things [and] treated me really well."
McKenzie did note, however, one instance where he did harbor some sour feelings about comments made by Chandler about him in the lead-up to the Hubbard fight.
"He had made a post about me being older than Austin," McKenzie said. "And I was like, 'Why are you talking trash about me now?' We were so cool when we were there, right? He talked to me after. He was like 'I wasn't talking trash, just notating that like you were older than Austin. I was not trying to kick you while you were down.' He reached out immediately and talked to me, and we smoothed it out and everything's been cool since then.
McKenzie added in that he was satisfied with his portrayal on the show and that TUF has been a mostly positive experience — minus some things he wish he could change.
McKenzie, the 34-year-old who is 11-2-1 in his professional MMA career, hopes that he'll still receive a call from the UFC to compete on a card in the near future. After having some struggles to get opponents on the regional scene, McKenzie wants to break into the big show ASAP.
"Whenever the season ends, if they call me up, I want to be in," McKenzie said. "I don't have a lot of time to run around and go win four or five more fights, unfortunately. I started a little later, but I'm great, my body feels great. I'm ready to go. And I am still, I think, in my fighting prime. All the people on top, we're all about the same age. But if I got to go beat a couple more people up for a call me I'm gonna go try and beat him up as fast as I can. I've unfortunately been stuck with some crummy circumstances and having a really hard time getting opponents.
"If, for whatever reason, they don't want to call me up after a win or two, I want to fight in Asia. It's been a goal of mine for as long as I can remember almost as much as fighting in the UFC. Now the big dream would be fighting on the Singapore card [on August 26] for the UFC. I would love that; that would be fun. But I'm just ready to go soon as mid-August hits — something before mid-September. That way I can fight at least two more times this year because it's been a tough wait."
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