Michael Page is known for having a tricky, difficult-to-deal-with style, but even he has to tip his cap to UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis.
This Saturday’s UFC 319 headliner sees du Plessis defend his middleweight title against the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev. Du Plessis is yet to lose inside the octagon, having compiled a 9-0 UFC record, with wins over marquee names such as Israel Adesanya, Robert Whittaker, and Sean Strickland. Along the way, du Plessis has received both praise and criticism for his brutish approach to fighting that doesn’t always look pretty, but hasn’t failed him yet.
Page is picking Chimaev to dethrone du Plessis, but believes plenty of credit has to be given where it’s due if du Plessis comes out on top yet again.
“I’m going to say Khamzat and I’ve been telling everyone exactly the same thing: If DDP wins this fight, I am never betting against this man ever again in my life,” Page said at UFC 319 media day on Wednesday. “I feel like a lot of people feel the same way, there’s something about his style that’s not appealing, but successful. I think it’s that not appealing side that keeps making us question his ability to win.
“His special gift that—we usually see through my kind of point style or Khamzat’s wrestling, like you can kind of see the obvious—his not so obvious obvious is probably just the fact that he knows how to be tough and grind out a win. That might just be his talent. He’s OK enough in terms of his mixed martial arts skill to just figure out a way to success and that might just be his thing.”
Page is currently dabbling in the middleweight division himself as he’s set to fight one-time UFC title challenger Jared Cannonier at Saturday’s event in Chicago. A longtime welterweight contender for Bellator, Page hasn’t declared any intention to chase 185-pound gold, even though putting back-to-back wins over Cannonier and the previously unbeaten Shara Bullet would mark Page as a dark horse in the division.
One thing he’s definitely not interested in is fighting Adesanya, a close friend. Unless the prices is right.
“We are prizefighters and I’m a person of respect,” Page said when asked about Adesanya. “I can fight someone that I respect highly, but you’re going to have to pay us a lot of money and I’m hoping this $7.7 billion deal does something for that, maybe. If I get given a lot of money and I think same for him, we’d 100 percent be like, ‘Bro, let’s just have our fight.’ But the likeliness is not on the money they pay us and I get paid nice.”
Should Page stick around at middleweight, he insists that while he enjoys not having to cut down to 170 pounds, his recent career move is strictly pragmatic. Page likes to stay busy and if the opportunities to book fights are at 185 pounds, then that’s where the matchmakers can find him.
“Remember, I come from a competition circuit background where I’m fighting sometimes up to 21 times in one day, and that’s at different weight divisions as well, different styles of fighting,” Page said. “It’s not the weight that stops me from performing, it’s more to do if there’s opportunities to take a fight. So yeah, I like to be active, and it seems like middleweight will allow me to be more active.”
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