Michael “Venom” Page wants to compete again before 2025 is over, and he’s gone as far as targeting one of the fastest rising stars in the welterweight division as his next opponent.
Following a pair of impressive wins at middleweight over Shara “Bullet” Magomedov and Jared Cannonier, the former Bellator title contender revealed plans to return to his old stomping grounds at welterweight. Page mentioned the always exciting Carlos Prates as a potential matchup after they both picked up wins at UFC 319
but the promotion opted to book him against Leon Edwards at UFC 322 instead.
So Page wasted no time calling for another potential matchup with hopes that he’ll get to fight again before the calendar flips over to 2026.
“I actually asked for an undefeated fighter, I’m just going to start taking out everybody — Michael Morales, he’s like 18-0,” Page said ahead of the Total Kombat event he’s promoting in his native England. “Again, just silence.
“I thought it would be perfect. Me fight him and then I fight the winner of Leon and Prates hopefully in the U.K.”
As of now, Page says he hasn’t heard any response from his request to fight Morales, who is coming off a blistering win over one-time title challenger Gilbert Burns in his most recent outing.
In many ways, Page believes he’s stuck in a tough spot, because at 38, he knows he’s not one of the younger fighters in the division but he’s currently 3-1 in the UFC with his only loss coming in a close decision to Ian Machado Garry back in 2024. Outside of that, Page has taken out two top middleweights and a veteran in Kevin Holland, which means he’s going to be a tough out for anybody the UFC throws at him.
“It’s weird,” Page said. “I feel like I’m in a very difficult space. The difficult space is I feel like the UFC, I guess because of my age and the timing of things, they’re thinking he’s got a very good brand, I could be the gatekeeper to help grow their fighters and then I started beating them. It’s like we don’t want to do that anymore. The guys that are more senior, like myself, they’ve been in there a long time just don’t want to fight me.
“I mentioned, I’m happy to fight Prates, it was no phone call, no nothing. Then all of a sudden, he’s got a fight. I’m in a bit of a weird area at the moment. You may start to see me call out a lot of people just to try and make something happen.”
Ideally, Page admits he would like to return to the United Kingdom for a fight in 2026 but he doesn’t expect the UFC to go back there until at least March. If he doesn’t fight again until then, Page would sit on the shelf for nearly seven months.
That’s why he wants to get another fight before 2025 is over and then Page can turn his full attention towards a possible return to the U.K. next year.
“I just want to get one more on this side of the year before the New Year,” Page said. “But I don’t really see that many people’s hands up. Let’s see what happens.
“They always come back to the U.K. in March. This is why I want to get one more in before the end of this year. I know if I don’t get a fight now, they’re going to make me wait until March and I want to be active. I’m just pushing to try and get anything going.”
