A funny thing happened to Michael Chandler during his two years out of the cage ahead of Saturday night’s UFC 309 co-main event. As he waited for Conor McGregor and watched the days pass without a fight deal or even a set date in mind, he realized something in his life had changed.

After fighting five times in less than two years and feeling like he was always recovering from one fight or in training camp preparing for the next, he suddenly experienced something resembling a normal life.

“Obviously you never want to talk about retirement because right now you want to focus on winning a fight, but what it did for over a year and a half was it gave me a little insight and a glimpse into what life is like to see. are like after a fight,” Chandler said. ‘And you know something? I liked it. I know I’m going to enjoy it when the time comes.”

Former UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, who fights Jon Jones for the UFC heavyweight title in the main event of UFC 309, had a similar revelation.

It’s been more than three years since Miocic last stepped into the cage. During his absence he stayed in the gym. He outfitted his own home gym with the best mats and punching bags he could find, giving him a place where he could train without ever being far from his family.

After moving from part-time to full-time work as a firefighter, he also had many responsibilities to balance. What he discovered was that an extended break from life in the UFC wasn’t actually that bad.

“Honestly, it was great,” Miocic said. “Just hanging out with my kids more and seeing them grow older. It’s really great. They come to the gym with me every now and then, and obviously I have the home gym here, but it’s been great. I love being a father and that gives me more time for that.”

One of the many notable ways in which professional fighting differs from other sports is the complete lack of a built-in offseason. Since there is no natural rhythm in life, fighters must decide for themselves when to work and when to rest.

But fighters also know how fleeting the opportunities in this sport can be. You don’t make money sitting on the couch, so the urge to cram in as many fights as possible each calendar year drives some to the point of exhaustion and beyond.

The UFC calendar can be brutal, meaning the next training camp may have to start just weeks after the last fight. When you get a big win, you want to keep the momentum going. Even when you’ve suffered a loss, there’s often a certain self-imposed pressure to get back on track and give the fans something better to remember you by.

The downside is that many fighters are back in the gym without ever fully healing. According to Alex Cooper, one of Miocic’s main coaches, that was the biggest difference in his training camp for this fight.

“The time out of the cage was a good thing,” Cooper said. “Stipe was able to fully heal his body from all the fights in a shorter amount of time from 2018 to 2021. That allowed us to start training camp at 100 percent instead of being somewhere less.”

The physical toll of grueling speed in MMA is only part of the burden. Life in a training camp can be an intensely short-sighted existence. You are only focused on the fight ahead. Every day you wake up, the only job you have is to prepare for that night. The Morning After might as well not even exist.

You do that over and over again, like Chandler did in the first two years after signing with the UFC, and you pay a price. You also spend so much time getting into fighting shape that there’s relatively little opportunity left to add new weapons to the arsenal.

“The first 26 months I signed with the UFC, I had six opportunities and six training camps,” Chandler said. “One of them was obviously a backup fight for (Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje), so I didn’t really fight. So I had five fights and six training camps in a 26-month period. So that meant that by the time I was done with one of those crazy fights, it would take me three, four, five weeks to actually get back on my feet where I could train again. All of a sudden (UFC executive vice president Hunter Campbell) calls me, (UFC CEO) Dana (White) calls me and says, ‘Hey, this is what we’re thinking.’ And I never had the time to actually put on the brakes, take a step back, learn new things and actually improve as a fighter.

Physically, it took a toll on Chandler, he said. But it was more than just the wear and tear on his body.

“Mentally and spiritually, I have to be honest with you, you feel it,” Chandler said. “Just because you love the sport doesn’t mean you don’t feel like it sometimes, or that it will never become a job. Then it starts to become more and more labor intensive, because it is a constant grind. And that’s really how I felt, honestly, going into that (Dustin) Poirier fight. Probably had the worst training camp of my life, and now I’ve had the best training camp of my life, and the big difference is I feel refreshed. My eyes are open, my ears are open and my heart is full.”

For Miocic, a period away from active competition did not necessarily mean a complete break from the sport. It definitely didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about Jones specifically.

Miocic said he first started planning games for Jones about two and a half years ago. When the former light heavyweight champion announced his intention to move up in weight, Miocic paid attention. A possible fight between them had been discussed several times before it was officially booked and then re-booked after Jones’ injury.

“Now we’re finally here,” Miocic said. “I just pray he’ll be there.”

According to both Miocic and his coach, the time off has given him the opportunity to hone old skills and add new ones. Jones’ only fight at heavyweight – a win over Ciryl Gane in March 2023 – was over too quickly to provide much information about how Jones’ game will translate to the new weight class.

But if there’s one thing Miocic is thinking about as he takes time to rest and recover, it’s how Jones’ chin will hold up to the punching power of heavyweights.

“Right now I don’t know, but we’ll find out,” Miocic said. “I’ll tell you this, I’m going to touch that chin a lot.”