A former collegiate teammate of Tyron Woodley's at the University of Missouri, Michael Chandler is an accomplished amateur wrestler and up and coming prospect in the world of mixed martial arts. Chandler was an aggressive, ultra competitive wrestler while in college and enters the sport with solid credentials achieving NCAA Division I All-American status during his 2009 wrestling season. Chandler is a good athlete but his biggest strength may be his work ethic and ferocious competitiveness, two attributes that were the driving forces behind his success during his time as a wrestler. Initially he gave thought to the idea of a career in MMA after watching fellow wrestlers Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley make the transition, and after helping UFC veteran T.J. Grant prepare for his UFC 97 fight, he took the plunge himself and made the decision to try his hand at the sport.

As a collegiate wrestler, Chandler was well known for his aggressiveness, tenacity and hardworking nature and those same qualities appear to have followed him over to his MMA career. Early in his career he's showed off his strong wrestling background displaying good takedowns and excellent control from top position. Chandler get's right on top of his opponent and does not stop working, giving his opponents' little opportunity to try and set anything up offensively. Very aggressive with his ground and pound, Chandler is not shy at all about letting his hands go exhibiting ferocious, suffocating top game potential given more time to develop. Although he has spent some time with American Top Team training his ground game, even by his own admission he will need to work hard on his BJJ and submission defense but given his work ethic and honest approach to his training there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that he can develop into a well rounded MMA grappler. As a wrestler transitioning to mixed martial arts there are questions about Chandler's standup and how it will progress. He appears to be very committed to his career and has spent time regularly working on his boxing with UFC and PRIDE veteran Yves Edwards in the past. At this point however his standup game is completely untested and how it will develop going forward remains to be seen.