Michael “Venom” Page opened more than a few eyes with his dazzling performance on Saturday as he shut down Shara “Bullet” Magomedov en route to a lopsided decision win in the UFC Saudi Arabia co-main event.
Despite moving up a weight class, Page still maintained his height and reach advantage as he frustrated Magomedov across all three rounds while never allowing the Russian to get inside on him. In return, Page exploded forward numerous times and blasted Magomedov with several stiff right hands as he kept racking up points with the judges.
In the end, Page secured a unanimous decision win with the scorecards reading 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28.
“Everybody look at me. Look at me. I am the captain now,” Page said after taking down ‘The Pirate’ on Saturday. “I wanted to mix it up. Shara Bullet is an amazing MMA fighter, regardless of this result, he’s going to go on and do some amazing things.”
With the unique stance that Page uses, Magomedov was able to target him with a series of leg kicks to start the fight. Both middleweights were coiled like a spring just waiting to explode with Page attempting to take the center of the octagon while Magomedov continued to figure out an opening to slip through his defense.
With just over a minute remaining in the opening round, Page exploded forward with a slick right hand that tagged the Russian and Magomedov actually gave him a thumbs up for a job well done.
As time passed, Magomedov was pretty clearly getting frustrated with his in ability to really do damage, especially without landing any real strikes to the head. He did continue to chop away at the legs but Page backed him off with his long, rangy punches while still threatening with head kicks as well.
Before the third round started, Magomedov’s coaches urged him to leave everything in the octagon after a lackluster 10 minutes to open the fight. As a result, Magomedov definitely got more aggressive but Page was so elusive that he just couldn’t catch up and it was the former Bellator fighter who was connecting with the better counters.
No matter what he tried, Magomedov just couldn’t find a home for any of his strikes and Page continuously chipped away at him from the outside. Page had a big smile on his face as the fight came to a close because he knew he was leaving Saudi Arabia with a victory while handing Magomedov the first defeat of his career.
It was a statement performance from Page in his first fight at 185 pounds in the UFC but he admitted afterwards that he still has business he wants to handle at welterweight so it appears this is ultimately a one and done for him for now.
