After spending 15 minutes in the cage with Ian Machado Garry, Michael ‘Venom’ Page believes that the undefeated Irishman would fall well short against the upper echelon at welterweight.
Michael Page and Ian Machado Garry met inside the Octagon at UFC 303 on June 29, where they fought to a close decision, with the Irishman just about doing enough to pick up the win and remain undefeated.
Unfortunately for ‘Venom’ Page, it scuppers any plans he had of fighting current welterweight champion, Leon Edwards, for the title on a UK stadium show.
Michael Page believes Leon Edwards and Shavkat Rakhmonov will ‘kill’ Machado Garry
Following his win over the 37-year-old, ‘The Future’ called for a fight against fellow undefeated contender, Shavkat Rakhmonov.
Despite that, ‘Venom’ Page believes that now he has spent 15 minutes in the cage with the 26-year-old, he is confident that Machado Garry will not become a UFC champion.
“Not at all, no. If that’s the game you’re going to go when you get a decent striker, then Leon (Edwards) is gonna kill you anyway. Then Shavkat (Rakhmonov) is gonna kill you anyway,” Page stated on The MMA Hour.
“There’s a few guys in there that I just don’t see him surpassing. He went a bit more tactical (against me) but again, some of the areas he didn’t even feel massively strong, not even trying to be disrespectful to him because again, he done his job, he was smart about how he went by it,” Page continued.
Machado Garry is currently ranked seventh in the division, and is campaigning for a fight against number three ranked, Rakhmonov. The two have previously trained together, and the Irishman recently revealed what happened during their sparring sessions.
The champion, Edwards, on the other hand, is in the final preparation of his July 27 title fight against Belal Muhammad, at UFC 304.
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‘Venom’ Page admits he wasn’t himself against the Irishman as he reveals ‘weird build up’ affected him
In the lead-up to their fight on International Fight Week, Machado Garry made a damaging claim that Page attempted to buy information from the Chute Box camp.
The 37-year-old admitted that he wasn’t quite himself during the fight and that’s why his performance was lacking.
“I don’t want to make too many excuses but there was a bit of a weird build-up as well and I always just try to stay focused on what I need to get done but I had a few issues that I needed to overcome in the build-up to the fight and got to the fight and wasn’t quite myself in there.
“For me, it’s just motivated me a bit more. Exactly what I said was gonna happen, happened, and as much as Ian said he’s this level of a striker, he’s this fast, he didn’t want to strike with me,” the Londoner said.
Despite his impressive debut win against Kevin Holland at UFC 299 in March, ‘MVP’ has claimed that he still hasn’t had a chance to show his real self inside the UFC cage, and wants to work on the correct things so that he can show that to the UFC fans.
“I just need to get back into the winning column in true MVP fashion. I still feel like I haven’t shown myself in the UFC cage… There’s still a lot to showcase from my side so I just want to correct all these little small mistakes so I can go in there as the best version of myself,” the 37-year-old finished.
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