{"id":139045,"date":"2025-09-13T01:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T01:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/139045\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T01:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T01:30:08","slug":"michael-page-calls-out-rising-ko-artist-but-in-a-difficult-space-due-to-ufc-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/139045\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Page calls out rising KO artist, but &#8216;in a difficult space&#8217; due to UFC &#8216;silence&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Page doesn&#8217;t know where he stands, and it&#8217;s making things a bit confusing.<\/p>\n<p>One month removed from <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/ufc-319-results-michael-page-031850926.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:his unanimous decision win;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his unanimous decision win<\/a> over Jared Cannonier at <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-319-du-plessis-vs-chimaev\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC 319;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC 319<\/a>, Page (24-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC) said he&#8217;s asked the UFC for at least three names for his next fight. Each suggestion, however, has been met with silence, according to Page.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, it&#8217;s weird,&#8221; Page said Friday during a press event for his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tapology.com\/fightcenter\/promotions\/6381-total-kombat-tk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Total Kombat;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Total Kombat<\/a> karate promotion. &#8220;I feel like I&#8217;m in a very difficult space. The very difficult space is that I feel the UFC, because of my age and the timing of things, they were thinking, because (I&#8217;ve) got a very good brand, I could be the gatekeeper to help grow their fighters. I started beating them. It&#8217;s like, &#8216;We don&#8217;t want to do that anymore.&#8217; Then, the guys that are more senior like myself, who have been there a long time, they just don&#8217;t want to fight me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Page said he first accepted the callout of Carlos Prates. However, Prates was instead matched with Leon Edwards, whom Page said he also asked the UFC for.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even after I mentioned I&#8217;m happy to fight Prates,&#8221; Page said. &#8220;There was no phone call or nothing and then all of a sudden he&#8217;s got a fight. It seems like a little bit of a weird area at the moment. You may see me call out a lot of people just to try to make something happen. At the moment, I&#8217;m hoping to fight in November or December. Nov. 15, the show, the same one Leon Edwards and Prates are fighting on. They&#8217;ve got Dec. (6), I believe. I just want to get one more on this side of the year before the new year. But I don&#8217;t see many people&#8217;s hands up. Let&#8217;s see what happens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Given that Edwards vs. Prates doesn&#8217;t take place until <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-322-della-maddalena-vs-makhachev\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC 322;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC 322<\/a> on Nov. 15, Page recognizes he&#8217;ll likely have to fight someone else before he&#8217;s able to get his hands on either one of those guys. He wants a contender. The UFC wants to book him vs. a rising fighter. So Page has come up with a solution to check off both those boxes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to be active,&#8221; Page said. &#8220;That&#8217;s why I said I&#8217;m just pushing to try to get anything going. I actually asked for a guy, an undefeated fighter, because I&#8217;m out here to start taking out everybody. Michael Morales, he&#8217;s 18-0. Again, silence. I thought it&#8217;d be perfect for me to fight him. Then, I&#8217;ll fight the winner of Leon and Prates, hopefully in the U.K.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Morales (18-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) has competed since <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/ufc-fight-night-256-results-013343350.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:an emphatic beatdown of Gilbert Burns;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an emphatic beatdown of Gilbert Burns<\/a> in May. He is not currently matched and the plan for him is unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Page&#8217;s Total Kombat takes place Saturday at O2 Arena in London and streams on TrillerTV.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2025\/09\/12\/ufc-michael-page-mvp-callout-michael-morales\/86120449007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Michael Page calls out rising UFC knockout artist among radio silence;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Michael Page calls out rising UFC knockout artist among radio silence<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Page doesn&#8217;t know where he stands, and it&#8217;s making things a bit confusing. One month removed from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,48142,786,95270,95271,28930,785,85,787],"class_list":["post-139045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carlos-prates","tag-fighting","tag-leon-edwards","tag-michael-morales","tag-michael-page","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}