In the video below, we see some intense sparring footage between Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler and top ranked UFC lightweight Michael Johnson. So you want to be a fighter, huh?

This sparring session looks to be more like a real fight than just training as both men are swinging pretty hard at each other here, particularly Chandler, with no head gear on nonetheless.

Though some believe that headgear doesn’t really do all that much to protect you from head trauma and really just gets in the way and even makes your head a bigger target. It definitely protects you from being cut though and a bad cut could lead to disaster if you’ve got a fight coming up.

In the footage we also see a very cool, Anthony Pettis-esque leap off the wall punch from Chandler and it looks like it lands too.

There are a couple of schools of thought out there about this kind of hard training. Nowadays, many fighters are against this kind of hard sparring due to fear of head trauma. Others believe that you should train like it’s a fight in order to best prepare you for a fight. Perhaps it is more of a preference thing depending on who you talk to.

Chandler is the current Bellator lightweight champion and is currently riding a 4-fight win streak including a huge win over former UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson in his last fight. Michael Johnson on the other hand is coming off of a brutal loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 205 and has another tough fight against promotional newcomer Justin Gaethje lined up for this summer.

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ABOUT MICHAEL CHANDLER:
Michael Chandler Jr. (born April 24, 1986) is an American mixed martial artist fighting in the lightweight division. He is currently under contract with Bellator MMA where he is the current, two-time Bellator Lightweight Champion. Chandler is currently ranked as the #7 Lightweight in the world according to FightMatrix.com and is regarded as one of the top 20 greatest Lightweight fighters of all time.[Source: Wiki]