Michael ‘Venom’ Page continues to be outspoken about the UFC’s matchmaking and is now calling into question the fights on the bill for the promotion’s next visit to London, England on March 21st, including his own match-up against Sam Patterson.
UFC Fight Night 270 will be headlined by Movsar Evloev vs. Lerone Murphy, but the main card as a whole isn’t as impactful as other UFC visits to the UK, with Luke Riley vs. Michael Aswell serving as the co-main event, alongside the likes of Iwo Barniewski vs. Austen Lane and Kurtis Campbell vs. Danny Silva.
“You look at the co-main event, you look at the whole card in general and it’s not the most exciting,” Page said in a new interview with MMAJunkie.
As a well-known British star, ‘Venom’ is also on that main card, but eyebrows have been raised at the fact that he’s facing an unranked fighter in Patterson, even if he is on a four-fight winning streak.
“I would have felt that a name like myself being on that card, I’m always going to go and show out always and make noise as I’ve always done, but I’m being positioned on the card in a weird way and I’ve been given an opponent, which is a bit of a weird opponent as well.
“I’m just wanting to fight, I don’t really want to wait, so it’s kind of like, let’s just do it, but it just feels like I’ve upset somebody.”
Page recently called out the UFC matchmakers for their reluctance to give him fights at 170lbs, so he’s now left wondering whether he’s rocked the boat too much, though meanwhile he’s also questioning whether his lack of finishes in the Octagon so far is also counting against him.
“I think the only thing I could suggest based on the stuff I’ve done – although I feel like I’ve had some great fights- the only thing I could really suggest is I haven’t had a finish, so it’s like maybe they’ve looked to purchase somebody that is known for spectacular finishes and I haven’t quite achieved that yet, so it could possibly be that,” Page said. “That’s me just speculating. But that’s the only thing I could see, because I still feel like I’ve had some really exciting fights that people have really enjoyed. There’s been moments, even the UFC themselves have been promoting and posting, so I feel like even though I haven’t got the finish, I’ve put on a show.
“At the same time, it’s the UFC. They are marketed as the best mixed martial arts show in the world, so therefore it’s going to be a lot more difficult to finish guys and you see how the talent pool that is growing constantly all the time, so it’s always going to be difficult. That’s the only thing I can really put forward as to potentially being an issue.”
At this stage it’s all guesswork from Page though, and so he’s just left with that nagging suspicion that he’s not the flavor of the month at UFC HQ heading into his next fight.
“I’m kind of not sure what the UFC want or even feel or even how they feel about me and my style, so yeah, it’s a difficult one to really analyze how I move forward from this because this fight, I don’t feel it does too much for me even winning a fight outside of getting a highlight reel that makes them maybe want to push me a bit more.
“I definitely don’t feel like I’m in good favor with UFC at the moment.”
