This weekend’s Bellator Paris card — actually two events in one, Bellator Europe 10 and Bellator 248 — seems to grow bigger and bigger.
Fans will be at the venue, albeit in limited numbers. It will be the first official MMA event in France. The BBC will be broadcasting the event on their iPlayer service, another first.
All this is not lost on Bellator 248 headliner Michael Page. “It’s great. It just makes it that much more of an occasion,” Page (17-1) told Cageside Press during the event’s media day on Wednesday, specifically in regards to the card being the sport’s coming out party in France. “Coming back after all this COVID-19 madness that’s still ongoing right now, having sports back is a great thing. That already feels like a bit of an occasion. Then to add it being just a historic event, because this is the first time France has opened its doors to MMA, just gets me that much more excited. So I’m happy.”
Fans in the building is something nice to see as well, though Page lamented that the number had dropped to 1,000 due to heightened restrictions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. The original number had been around 5,000.
“It’s a shame because it is such a historic event that’s about to take place, it’s a shame that we couldn’t get a full house in there,” noted Page. “It would have been great. But it’s definitely a reason to come back to France and put on a show later on, when everything’s back to normal.”
As for the promotion’s upcoming first visit to Paris, “MVP” has been paired up with Cage Warriors welterweight champ Ross Houston. Though an undefeated fighter who has proven himself in the U.K. promotion, the usual chatter has already started up online: It’s another “can” for Page to crush.
Anyone paying attention knows that isn’t the case. But the kickboxer known as “Venom” has already faced harsh criticism when it comes to opponents, despite facing names like Ricky Rainey (who later joined the UFC), Shinsho Anzai (a former UFC fighter), Bellator mainstay Caveman Rickels, Paul Daley, and even 170lb champ Douglas Lima.
“It’s a bit of an unfortunate side effect to my style,” opined Page on the subject of the heat he’s taken over the level of opposition he’s encountered in an 18-fight career. “I’ve said this from a long time ago. If I beat all the exact same people that I’ve beaten so far, but in a very different, more generic style where it’s a bit more back and forward, where I get hit a couple more times, I get rocked and come back, people would just label me ‘yeah this guy’s a great fighter, he’s tough.'” Gone, he suggested, would be talk of “oh he’s fighting cans.”
“Because of my style I make really good opponents look mediocre,” Page continued. “Which is great entertainment-wise, it’s great for me as a fighter because I’m able to keep really safe and still be devastating, but there’s a side effect to that where people just don’t believe in the opponents I have, unless they’re really high name opponents.”
Right from his first fight, MVP added, people were trying to match him up with names like Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre. “I’d barely done six months of jiu-jitsu. That just shows your the effect of my style.”
Watch the full Bellator Paris media day scrum with Michael Page above. The event goes down live this Saturday, October 10.
