Michael ‘Venom’ Page discovered his placement on the UFC London card “very strange and disrespectful.”
The 38-year-old faces fellow Londoner Sam Patterson at The O2 on Saturday for his first UFC fight on dwelling soil.
4
When the full UFC London card was confirmed, MMA followers have been left confused at Page not being featured increased up on the invoice.
The headliner sees Lerone Murphy battle Movsar Evloev to resolve the following UFC featherweight title challenger, whereas Paddy Pimblett‘s teammate Luke Riley is appearing as one half of the co-main occasion.
While Page believes there could also be a tactical purpose behind his placement, as a result of UFC’s broadcast deal with Paramount+, the choice nonetheless left him uneasy.
Michael Page: UFC London determination ‘very unusual and disrespectful’
“It was confusing,” Page advised talkSPORT.com and members of the media in London on Thursday.
“I’m not sure what was happening, but a good friend of mine actually pointed out that the Paramount system is different.
“It’s extra about eyeballs and maintaining eyeballs versus when you’ve paid your subscription, then it doesn’t actually matter.
“So he said it could simply be that they want to keep placing people in slightly different orders to maintain viewership.
“And that thought, whether or not he’s right or not, made me suppose he may have some extent.
“Obviously, we’re on a new platform now, so they might do things slightly differently.
“But yeah, once more, initially I simply discovered it very, very unusual and disrespectful.”
4
UFC London: Fight card
Main card
- MAIN EVENT: Movsar Evloev vs Lerone Murphy – Featherweight
- CO-MAIN EVENT: Luke Riley vs Michael Aswell – Featherweight
- Michael Page vs Sam Patterson – Welterweight
- Iwo Baraniewski vs Austen Lane – Light heavyweight
- Roman Dolidze vs Christian Leroy Duncan – Middleweight
- Kurtis Campbell vs Danny Silva – Featherweight
Preliminary card
- Mason Jones vs Axel Sola – Lightweight
- Nathaniel Wood vs Losene Keita – Featherweight
- Louie Sutherland vs Brando Pericic – Heavyweight
- Mantas Kondratavicius vs Antonio Trocoli – Middleweight
- Mick Parkin vs Mario Pinto – Heavyweight
- Melissa Mullins vs Luana Carolina – Women’s bantamweight
- Shem Rock vs Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady – Lightweight
- Shanelle Dyer vs Ravena Oliveira – Women’s strawweight
Page, a dominant welterweight under the Bellator banner, made his UFC debut in March 2024.
He has three wins in Dana White‘s promotion towards high-calibre opponents, Kevin Holland, Shara Magomedov, and, most recently, Jared Cannonier, who was outpointed by Page last August.
Page’s only hurdle in the UFC came against Ian Machado Garry at UFC 303, with the Englishman suffering a unanimous decision against the man now eying a welterweight title shot against Islam Makhachev.
‘Venom’ didn’t understand why he was matched with Patterson, being forced to move back down to welterweight following his middleweight clash with Cannonier in Chicago last time out.
He was chasing a top-ranked opponent, but instead finds himself up against a hungry Patterson, who is on a four-fight, first-round stoppage winning streak in the UFC.
MVP has already traded blows with Patterson
Page revealed this week that Patterson has actually helped him prepare for all of his fights in the UFC thus far, but admitted on Thursday that his opponent has not yet seen the full version of himself.
4
4
“I wouldn’t say I could technically use [sparring Patterson] because the focus at the time was the opponents that I was fighting,” Page stated.
“So initially it was Kevin Holland and we needed somebody tall, a striker, so on and so forth—my coach would restrain me and do specific things.
“[Patterson] hasn’t necessarily seen the full MVP, in terms of going to fight somebody like him.
“He was being helpful in the same way as well. He was very good in being quite specific about what my opponents would do.
“So I guess we haven’t quite seen each other. We’ve had a feel of each other. We haven’t quite seen each other at full capacity.
“I don’t want to go by that I have to go by what happens on the night.
“I have a general idea based on his fights, not on our sparring. It’s based on the videos we’ve seen of him actually competing, because that’s when he lets himself out and that’s what I’m going to focus on.”
Page additionally advised the media that ‘UFC nerves’ is an actual factor when discussing how he does not consider anybody has seen the perfect of him within the Octagon.
Patterson addressed the media later within the afternoon, noting that he understands how harmful his opponent could be.
The 29-year-old stated the “shock” of how briskly ‘MVP’ could be is what earlier opponents have been affected by, however he is aware of all too properly what he’s coping with.
It is definitely the most important fight of the Team Crossface consultant’s profession and plenty of followers have already backed it to win the UFC’s $100,000 Fight of the Night bonus.
For ticket info to see the occasion stay, learn our article on UFC Fight Night London tickets.
UFC Schedule
For all of the upcoming fights and outcomes this yr, try talkSPORT.com’s UFC schedule.
