{"id":59820,"date":"2025-08-11T11:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/59820\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T11:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:13:09","slug":"ufc-319-michael-venom-page-sick-of-political-welterweight-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/59820\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC 319: Michael \u2018Venom\u2019 Page sick of \u2018political\u2019 welterweight division"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Michael \u201cVenom\u201d Page returns to action <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-news\/381234\/joe-rogan-finally-returns-at-ufc-319-while-snubbed-dustin-poirier-scores-first-post-retirement-broadcast-gig\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at UFC 319<\/a> on August 16th against Jared Cannonier. It\u2019s another middleweight fight \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2024\/10\/31\/24283291\/michael-page-teases-middleweight-move-shara-magomedov-slugfest-ufc-espn-mma-just-for-the-fun-of-it\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MVP\u2019s second in a row<\/a> after his first two UFC bouts at welterweight. And according to the British kickboxer, that\u2019s because getting fights at 170 was too much of a pain in the neck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Page discussed the issue in a new interview with Fred Talks Fighting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI actually wanted to go back down,\u201d he said. \u201cI just find a lot of the guys at welterweight, it seems to be very political. Nobody wants to fight. Everyone wants to fight specific people, and it\u2019s a bit of a battle. I\u2019m not in that stage of my career, I just wanna fight everybody and anybody, and not everybody is in the same place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cWhereas at middleweight, people are a lot more keen, a lot more willing to [fight], especially because I\u2019m coming up. They already know that they have a slight advantage there. But I\u2019m just ready to go against anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cAgain, I find it a bit more political,\u201d he continued. \u201cI assumed after that big fight, that big win, my last fight, I was gonna get a lot of fights and people active, ready to go and go again, but it was very quiet. And I was calling out people, and it\u2019s still very quiet. So, like I said, very political down there. So I\u2019m like, you know what? Middleweight is a comfortable weight for me in terms of not having to cut so much, so it\u2019s easier. So, yeah, why not?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI get a big win here against Jared and I get a top five opponent next, I\u2019m right in the running for a title shot,\u201d he said. \u201cNext year, I wanna fight in the UK before I call it quits because that\u2019s what the fans are asking for. So I\u2019d love to fight on home ground in the UFC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cSo next year, maybe I get a big UK fight, and then I\u2019m looking for a title fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael \u201cVenom\u201d Page returns to action at UFC 319 on August 16th against Jared Cannonier. It\u2019s another middleweight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-59820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59820","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=59820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}