Veteran MMA journalist Ariel Helwani has provided a somewhat dire update on the status of the Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler UFC 303 bout. After a press conference for the June 29 event was canceled abruptly by the UFC, allegedly due to McGregor’s reluctance, there have been widespread speculations that ‘Mac’s comeback bout after three years may be in jeopardy.

Helwani, in a recent tweet, revealed that while there was ‘positivity’ the bout was still on, and the Dana White-led promotion was sending out ‘feelers’ to other fighters to either replace McGregor in the main event bout or replace the bout entirely. However, the story was still developing and nothing could be said for certain yet, according to the journalist.

“No news at the moment. The hope is still that the fight is on. There is positivity, I’d say. But they have sent out feelers to see who might be able to fill in, either as a replacement or an entirely new fight at the top of the bill. Still developing, and still some time,” he tweeted.

The UFC looking for replacement fighters for the main event of UFC 303 is certainly worrying and seemingly rings the alarm bells for McGregor-Chandler. However, it is important to remember that this doesn’t mean the bout is off. All of this talk around McGregor-Chandler being in jeopardy, of course, started with the press conference fiasco, and the journalist had made some important revelations about it on his show on YouTube.

Helwani on why the Conor McGregor UFC 303 press conference was called off

Speaking on his ‘MMA Hour Show’ on YouTube yesterday, Ariel Helwani claimed that he could say with “100% certainty, confirmed, 1000%, that nothing with regards to any sort of legal issue, incident of any kind, drama of any kind, criminal thing of any kind, fight of any kind, alcohol, this, that, like, none of that is at play here.”

This, of course, rules out any sort of legal trouble as the cause for the press conference being called off. In addition, the journalist confidently asserted that there was “nothing regarding any sort of drug testing or anti-doping or anything like that” behind the press conference fiasco, either.

This is why former UFC heavyweight and popular podcaster Brendan Schaub’s theory that there was “something personal between Conor and the UFC” was why the Irishman chose not to attend the media day event in his hometown. Schaub thought that the cancellation had to do with ‘notorious’ and the UFC not seeing eye to eye about the Irishman’s media obligations and press tour for UFC 303.

The ongoing contract negotiations between ‘Mac’ and the Las Vegas-based promotion going bad may also be a possible reason for disagreements between the UFC and its prodigal son. However, until either the UFC or Conor McGregor shed more light on it, nothing could be said for certain.

What are your thoughts on Helwani’s tweet?