Michael Chandler on viral reaction to stool incident: ‘People are ruthless’

It wasn’t intentional, but it was still the insult on top of the injury.

Michael Chandler got up from his stool at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night after his left foot injury was checked out by the New York State Athletic Commission doctors during his fight with Brent Primus.

Unbeknownst to the now-former Bellator lightweight champion, his commission second made off with his stool in the few seconds he was on his feet. So when Chandler went to sit down again, expecting the stool to be there, he instead went crashing backside first to the mat.

It was strangely apropos both of the strange situation, in which Chandler lost to Primus via injury TKO in their Bellator NYC fight, and of NYSAC in general, which has developed a Keystone Cops reputation in less than a year of overseeing pro MMA.

And the moment also went viral, for which Chandler has a message.

“People are ruthless,” Chandler said during an in-studio appearance Monday on The MMA Hour. “You guys are frickin' ruthless. The human race is ruthless, okay?”

It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world losing his title to a fluke injury, then going into social media and being mocked for something that wasn’t his fault, Chandler said.

“You just had a man out there in front of millions and millions of people walking around and like a baby deer that just got birthed into a field walking around on the stanky leg,” Chandler said. “Whatever you want to call it. And there’s people posting the videos of that runway model with her ankles, or posting the video of me getting dropped on my butt on the stool.”

Chandler refused to name the commission employee who caused the stool incident, who was his official shadow on the evening in the locker room and out to the cage, saying he’s a good guy who simply made an honest mistake.

But Chandler himself has no such anonymity, as the reaction to the incident all-too-painfully reminds. All he can do is grudgingly accept the realities of things as they are.

“It’s not [funny], but what are you going to do?” Chandler asked. “People love to make fun of people.”