Michael ‘Venom’ Page will move back up to middleweight to face Nursulton Ruziboev at UFC Fight Night 287 in Paris, France on September 5th.

It’s surprising to see the 39-year-old Page take a step back up to 185lbs as not so long ago he had made it clear that he was annoyed that the UFC were making him take fights in that division despite his desire to compete at 170lbs.

After stringing together a couple of decision wins at middleweight last year against Shara Magomedov and Jared Cannonier, ‘Venom’ did manage a fight down at welterweight in March, beating Sam Patterson by unanimous decision.

Rather than trying to continue to build momentum there, Page will now go back up in weight to fight the unranked 32-year-old Ruziboev, who is also currently on a three-fight winning streak.

That run began with a TKO victory against Eric McConico, then a unanimous decision victory over Dustin Stoltzfus, and most recently a 1st round submission of Andrey Pulyaev.

Page vs. Ruziboev joins a UFC Fight Night 287 card that doesn’t yet have a main event attached to it at this point, with the likes of Ryan Spann vs. Mario Pinto and Oumar Sy vs. Modestas Bukauskas being among the confirmed bouts so far.