Michael 'Venom' Page's UFC Exit: A Controversial Decision
Michael 'Venom' Page walked out of the UFC with five wins from six, a record most fighters would use as leverage for a new deal. Instead, it became the full stop on a short, curious chapter.
He arrived from Bellator as a showman, a highlight-reel merchant, a man whose very stance promised chaos. The UFC got the wins. It didn’t always get the spectacle. And in a promotion where entertainment is currency, that distinction can be brutal.
Page’s only loss came against Ian Machado Garry, now a title contender who just went stride for stride with Islam Makhachev, the pound-for-pound No. 1. That defeat hardly looked like grounds for a cut. He went into his final fight at UFC Paris with that uncertainty hanging over him, speculation swirling that the company might not bring him back.
He won again. A tough opponent beaten, another tick in the W column.
But the conversation that night wasn’t about the result. It was about the feeling. Once more, Page failed to ignite the crowd in the way many expected when he crossed over from Bellator. For the UFC matchmakers, that seemed to be the tipping point.
No new contract. No negotiation story. Just a clean break and a proven name suddenly on the open market.
Israel Adesanya didn’t hide his frustration. He looked at Page’s exit and compared it directly to Tai Tuivasa’s ongoing run with the promotion. Tuivasa is still on the roster despite enduring an eight-fight losing streak, a skid that would usually spell the end for almost anyone.
"It's unfortunate. They cut Michael 'Venom' Page, and they don't cut [Tai Tuivasa]… The UFC is a different business," Adesanya said, pointing straight at the inconsistency. For him, this wasn’t just about wins and losses. It was about how those decisions get made behind closed doors.
He talked about the “brass,” the decision-makers, operating on a case-by-case basis, driven by their own instincts and interests. Personalities, relationships, marketability — all of it mixing into the equation. In his words, “they’re human beings,” and human decisions don’t always follow a clean, logical line.
Adesanya then shifted the focus back to Page the fighter. To the problem he poses.
"Michael is just a hard man to kill," he said. He described that peculiar energy a certain type of striker brings: the kind that forces opponents to hesitate, to second-guess, to wait. Not because they’re tactical geniuses, but because they’re wary of being made to look foolish.
Adesanya has seen that from the other side. He spoke about fights where he could feel opponents freezing, waiting for him to overcommit while he picked them apart. “I'm touching the guy. I'm peppering the guy… 'Bro, I'm hitting you. You've got to come to me.' But they just want a freebie, and this is not a freebie.”
That’s the paradox with Page. His style can make opponents clam up, which can drag fights into a slow, tactical stalemate. The purist might appreciate the layers. The casual fan, less so. The UFC, even less than that.
"You have to let people cook, give them time," Adesanya insisted. In his eyes, Page was still delivering where it matters most on paper: he was winning. He acknowledged the reality that Page arrived as a “big investment” from Bellator, on strong money, with expectations to match. The UFC wanted the Bellator version — the wild finishes, the viral clips, the swagger.
Maybe they felt they weren’t getting that. Maybe the risk-reward, the pay-to-pop ratio, didn’t add up.
Adesanya doesn’t buy it. “I find it exciting,” he said of Page’s work, even in the UFC. For him, the promotion misread the value. They saw a lack of fireworks. He saw a specialist doing what specialists do: making dangerous men look hesitant.
So Page now sits in free agency: a proven name, a polarising style, and a résumé that hardly screams “cuttable.” The UFC has moved on. The question is which organisation will see what Adesanya sees — and whether they’ll let Michael ‘Venom’ Page cook long enough for everyone else to see it too.
