Michael ‘Venom’ Page found 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 home soil.
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When the full UFC London card was confirmed, MMA fans were left confused at Page not being featured higher up on the bill.
The headliner sees Lerone Murphy battle Movsar Evloev to decide the next UFC featherweight title challenger, while Paddy Pimblett‘s teammate Luke Riley is acting as one half of the co-main event.
While Page believes there may be a tactical reason behind his placement, due to the UFC’s broadcast deal with Paramount+, the decision still left him uneasy.
Michael Page: UFC London decision ‘very strange and disrespectful’
“It was confusing,” Page told 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 more about eyeballs and keeping eyeballs versus once you’ve paid your subscription, then it doesn’t really 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 he’s correct or not, made me think he could have a point.
“Obviously, we’re on a new platform now, so they might do things slightly differently.
“But yeah, again, initially I just found it very, very strange and disrespectful.”
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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 against 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.
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“I wouldn’t say I could technically use [sparring Patterson] because the focus at the time was the opponents that I was fighting,” Page said.
“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 also told the media that ‘UFC nerves’ is a real thing when discussing how he doesn’t believe anyone has seen the best of him in the Octagon.
Patterson addressed the media later in the afternoon, noting that he understands how dangerous his opponent can be.
The 29-year-old said the “shock” of how fast ‘MVP’ can be is what previous opponents have been affected by, but he knows all too well what he’s dealing with.
It is without a doubt the biggest fight of the Team Crossface representative’s career and many fans have already backed it to win the UFC’s $100,000 Fight of the Night bonus.
For ticket information to see the event live, read our article on UFC Fight Night London tickets.
UFC Schedule
For all the upcoming fights and results this year, check out talkSPORT.com’s UFC schedule.
