Michael Venom Page wants the UFC relationship to keep rolling, but he is not trying to spend the back stretch of his career collecting random matchmaking coupons. Page once said he could see himself in the UFC against top names, and now he wants the promotion to show him a real road map. Ahead of his UFC Paris fight with Nursulton Ruziboev on September 5, Page says the bout is the final fight on his current deal and the next contract needs to come with a real route toward gold.
That is the awkward part of the MVP experiment right now. Page arrived in 2024 with years of Bellator highlight-reel chaos behind him, then hit the UFC machine and found out quickly that style points do not always turn into clean title positioning. He lost to Ian Machado Garry at UFC 303, bounced through middleweight, and rebuilt momentum with wins over Shara Magomedov, Sam Patterson, and Jared Cannonier.
Page made it clear in a newly released interview that he still wants the Octagon, not a fast exit into free agency.
“Yeah. The plan is to go ahead and sign a new deal and continue.
“Every fight is a fight. You have to kind of re-establish yourself, improve yourself, and I want to just remind them who they have in amongst the UFC roster.
“I want to go out there and put on a show but also remind them of the reason that they signed me with a finish.”
That last bit matters because Page has heard the complaints. The Sam Patterson win was tactical, weird, and not exactly the kind of violence that gets matchmakers sprinting into a new contract meeting. Even Page later admitted that performance was not pretty, and MiddleEasy already covered how Joe Rogan expected Ian Machado Garry to have real trouble with Page before that first UFC setback.
MVP Wants More Than Filler Fights
Page said the question after UFC Paris is not whether he can keep fighting. It is whether the UFC is willing to give him a target that makes sense. At 39 years old, the man is not exactly shopping for a three-year sightseeing tour through every awkward middleweight nobody asked for.
“Then I want to sit back down with them and say ‘where are we going from here?’.
“I want to continue, but my goal is the title. I don’t want to have just random fights here and there for the sake of making up a show, and I am a person that is purposeful.
“Like I need, I need a specific goal. I need drive to to wake me up in the morning.
“So I need them to give me that, and then just allow me to to go out and try to try to achieve it.”
The Ruziboev booking is part of the frustration. Page is ranked above his UFC Paris opponent, and after his win over Cannonier he had a fair argument for another name with top-end heat. Instead, he gets a dangerous but lower-ranked opponent while his contract clock hits zero. That is classic MMA business theater, where one wrong night can turn leverage into vapor.
Page also said the title path has not been properly mapped out since his UFC run shifted gears. He pointed back to the Kevin Holland start, then said things slowed down after beating Shara Magomedov.
“No, that’s the thing. They they haven’t [plotted me a path to title].
“Kevin Holland first, you know, big fighter, somebody that is very reputable, super experienced, and then we just went on from there.
“So I felt like it was okay. Yes, it’s a good thing. I feel like after the Shara Magomedov fight, things started to slow down.”
He added that the Cannonier fight was difficult to land and said matchmaking has not been ideal since that stretch.
“That was a very opportunistic fight for me. I got the fight, won the fight, and it felt like I don’t know something shifted from from there.
“In my opinion, in terms of again, thereafter getting fights was was very difficult. The Cannonier fight, I don’t even think Cannonier was happy to even take the fight, and it’s just been not the best of matchmaking there since.
“So again, I’m hoping to reconnect with them after this fight, and then map out a proper path again, so we’re aligned and we move forward from there.”
There is still a simple way for Page to make this conversation louder. Go to Paris, beat Ruziboev clean, and preferably do it with the kind of finish that reminds everyone why Bellator crowds used to lose their minds when he started bouncing around like a cheat code. If that happens, the UFC has a useful veteran with name value, a tricky style, and enough fresh momentum to justify a bigger next step.
If it does not, free agency gets spicy. Page has already crossed over before, including the bare-knuckle detour where he was booked against Mike Perry at BKFC 27, and outside promotions are always hunting for recognizable names. Either way, after Page rebuilt from the Garry loss and kept himself relevant, MVP is asking for something more concrete than another random Saturday assignment.
