Michael Chandler denies hitting Charles Oliveira with rabbit punches at UFC 309

Michael Chandler refutes claims that he struck Charles Oliveira with illegal blows at UFC 309.

Oliveira (35-10 MMA, 23-10 UFC) managed to fend off Chandler’s (23-9 MMA, 2-4 UFC) late rally to win a unanimous decision in their rematch less than two weeks ago at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Chandler dropped Oliveira late in the fight, and landed an array of shots which many – including the commentators deemed as illegal shots to the back of the head. Oliveira took issue with the blows, but Chandler insists that the shots landed to the side of the ear.

“I’m not going to say I didn’t do anything wrong, OK? I’m not going to say that people couldn’t look at it and splice it and look at it under a fine-tooth comb and a magnifying glass,” Chandler said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “But the unified rules of mixed martial arts say that there is a line drawn from the crown of the head down to the neck, one-inch variance on either side.

“So you’re talking about a two-inch area on the back of someone’s head that is considered the back of the head. If you watch 90 percent of the shots, at least, most of them, almost all of them, my fist was catching the ear. If you’re catching the ear, that’s not the back of the head. Actually, what you and I would call the back of the head is not the actual definition of what it is. That two-inch strip down the back of the head.”

Referee Keith Peterson did not give official warnings to Chandler for any wrongdoing during the fight, and never warned Chandler about any of his strikes in that sequence.

“A referee who was within two feet away never said one thing about it,” Chandler said. “Then you’ve got commentators who were 35-feet away saying it’s the back of the head and you’ve got other people saying it was back of the head.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 309.