Michael Chandler wants to be the law inside a match with no rules. The former Bellator lightweight champion offered his services to WWE NXT General Manager Robert Stone for the Unsanctioned match between Dion Lennox and Cruz Montana on the Wednesday, November 4 episode of NXT, and Stone took him up on it.
Late on October 30, Stone posted a video on X saying it is “set in stone” that Chandler will be the special guest enforcer for the Unsanctioned match. Chandler quickly signed off on it, replying, “It’s set in stone!!!! Not a better man for the job…no one is more unsanctioned than me.”
Chandler made the pitch in a video posted to his Instagram on October 30, captioned “No one more unsanctioned than me. @mrstonewwe your call.” Speaking straight to Stone, he said the GM clearly wants the Lennox and Montana feud finished without taking responsibility for what happens. If Stone needs someone to “keep a little order,” Chandler said, he should call, because the job takes someone fluent in “the language of chaos.”
Stone answered on X the same day:
Stone’s first reply, “Your making this too easy for me @MikeChandlerMMA,” came hours before the video made it official. The role is an enforcer spot rather than a match, and it’s an easy crossover to book with WWE and the UFC both under the TKO umbrella.
A wrestling detour after four straight losses
The timing is the MMA story here. Chandler, 40, hasn’t competed since Mauricio Ruffy stopped him at UFC Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn on June 14. The TKO came at 4:29 of the first round and was his fourth straight loss and sixth in seven fights, dropping him to 2-6 in the UFC and 23-11 overall.
That run has fueled the retirement questions, and Dustin Poirier openly wondered what Chandler is still chasing. The Conor McGregor fight he campaigned for never materialized, even as Israel Adesanya argued Chandler is the only opponent that makes sense for McGregor.
WWE has been circling for a while. Chandler appeared on Raw in 2024, and this summer he turned up at the WWE Performance Center, where he worked out in the ring, according to the Wrestling Observer.
What else is on the November 4 NXT
NXT moves to Wednesday that week to avoid The CW’s U.S. midterm election coverage on November 3, which puts it head-to-head with the Blood & Guts edition of AEW Dynamite. WWE has stacked the show to compete:
- Unsanctioned match: Dion Lennox vs. Cruz Montana, with Michael Chandler as special guest enforcer
- Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic final: Noam Dar & Romeo Moreno vs. Hank Walker & Tank Ledger, with Cody Rhodes presenting the trophy
- John Cena appears
For the wrestling side of the story, SEScoops has the full rundown on Chandler’s NXT appearance and the head-to-head battle with Dynamite.
