Michael Chandler explains why he hasn’t gotten vaccinated yet

UFC lightweight title contender Michael Chandler explained why he hasn’t gotten himself vaccinated against COVID-19 yet.

Chandler is set to take on rival Justin Gaethje at UFC 268 in November at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. When the fight was first announced, one of the potential issues in booking the fight was that Chandler is not yet vaccinated. At first, it was expected that athletes competing on the New York card would have to show proof of being vaccinated. However, that won’t be the case as the fighters won’t have to be vaccinated.

Either way, Chandler doesn’t feel comfortable getting it at this time, even though he originally said he was waiting for FDA approval and used that as his reason for not getting it. But speaking to The MMA Hour’s Ariel Helwani, he explained why he hasn’t gotten the vaccine yet, and why he might not get it in the future.

“The funny thing about the vaccination thing was, I didn’t come out, I didn’t do one story to tell people about it, about the vaccine. I didn’t get on your show and start talking about the vaccine. I was in a private Instagram Live session with a couple thousand people or whatever it was. Five minutes after I hit ‘End Live,’ one of the MMA media outlets come out and said Chandler isn’t getting vaxxed, and then I got labeled an anti-vaxxer,” Chandler said.

“I don’t personally have the vaccine right now. I don’t know if I ever will get the vaccine. Personally, I just believe that we live in the greatest country on the planet. I believe that this is the greatest country on the planet because of our individual liberties and our individual choices, especially when it comes to our bodies and our medical history and our health. So that’s where I stand on it. And it wasn’t a heel turn whatsoever. It was just the people who labelled me an anti-vaxxer obviously thought I was a heel, when really I was just answering a question.”

Do you understand where Michael Chandler is coming from in regards to vaccines?