Michael “Venom” Page, or simply “MVP,” was arguably the biggest star on the UFC London card on Saturday, but you wouldn’t have known it from the reaction fans gave his fight with Sam Patterson.
Quite the low-action snoozer, and a match-up that had been highly criticized ahead of the fight: why was the UFC booking Page, who holds wins over Kevin Holland and Shara Bullet inside the octagon and was one of Bellator’s biggest stars, being matched up with a virtual unknown?
Fans booed the fight; some even booed the result. Calls were made online for “MVP” to be cut from the UFC, with even Dana White admitting during the UFC London post-fight press conference that it was a bad fight.
Now, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, who was not at Saturday’s event at the O2 in London, has chipped in his two cents. He’s pointed to matchmaking for the rather boring outcome, questioning why two former training partners were booked opposite one another.
“Crazy bad. That’s a crazy bad fight,” Rogan said of the bout immediately as it wrapped, on his Fight Companion podcast. “I bet it was one of those 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 was like, I’ve been in there with him a hundred rounds, I know how to fight him.”
During the bout, Rogan questioned why the UFC’s matchmakers “didn’t think of this when they booked this fight,” adding that “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 a bunch of dudes said no, and Patterson said ‘let’s go.’”
Page is now 4-1 in the UFC following a unanimous decision victory over Patterson.
