Joe Rogan blames possibly the worst fight of 2026 on the UFC matchmakers.
On Saturday night, Michael “Venom” Page eked out a decision win over Sam Patterson at UFC London, in one of the worst fights of the year. For 15 minutes, Page and Patterson, former training partners, tepidly engaged one another, landing a combined 39 significant strikes. The fight immediately drew criticism from nearly everyone with eyeballs, but Rogan thinks the blame should perhaps be focused not on the fighters, but on the men
who put this bout together.
“It’s interesting that they didn’t think of this when they booked this fight,” Rogan said on his Fight Companion podcast during the second round. “They didn’t think, ‘These guys are training partners, this might be a stinker.’ Maybe it’s like, you can’t get anybody to fight Venom Page in London? That might be a problem, too. It might have been [that] a bunch of dudes said no, and Patterson was like, let’s go.”
While Page and Patterson are not full-time training partners, the two do have a lot of experience with one another, as Page brought Patterson into his camp to help him prepare for pass opponents. Despite their familiarity, both men opted to accept the fight, though in hindsight, maybe that wasn’t for the best, because as the fight dragged on, Rogan could barely contain his disdain.
“This might be the least action of any fight, ever, next to Derrick Lewis and Francis Ngannou,” Rogan said.
“… This is crazy bad. That’s a crazy bad fight,” Rogan added later. “… That’s a crazy matchup. It’s literally the last guy you want to fight a style like that, someone who understands it. It’s the last thing you want! Don’t you want excitement? Don’t you want as real as it gets? Don’t you want ‘Just Bleed?’”
“I bet it was one of the things where there’s not a lot of guys lining up to take that fight, because he makes you look so stupid. But this dude is like, ‘I’ve been in there with him 100 rounds, I know how to fight it.’ It’s a big advantage, man! Giant advantage! Knowing what that distance and speed is like.”
Unfortunately for Patterson, the loss stopped a four-fight winning streak, and worse, put his name on one of the worst fights in recent memory. But Rogan thinks things might somehow be even worse for Page, who gains almost nothing from the win, and may have lost something despite getting the nod.
“I think it’s bad for him,” Rogan said of Page. “It’s not good. But also, here’s the problem: now people know how to fight him. People are going to watch that and go, ‘Oh, just don’t engage. Make him engage.’”
