Michael Page's UFC Exit Sparks Controversy

Michael “Venom” Page’s quiet exit from the UFC has lit a fuse far beyond the matchmakers’ room.

Five wins from six in the octagon. The only blemish on his UFC record? A decision loss to Ian Machado Garry, now fresh off a firefight with pound-for-pound No. 1 Islam Makhachev. On paper, that résumé usually earns you a new deal, not a release. Yet as Page walked into UFC Paris for the final bout of his contract, the whispers were already there: the company might not bring him back.

He won again. Another solid scalp. But the performance didn’t explode, didn’t ignite the arena in the way the UFC had clearly hoped when they pulled him from Bellator. The result went in the book; the mood around it did not. By the time the dust settled in Paris, the decision had been made. No new contract. Michael “Venom” Page was on the market.

Free agency for a fighter of his profile is always going to stir debate. This one provoked something stronger.

Israel Adesanya, never shy when it comes to calling out what he sees as inconsistencies in the business, took one look at Page’s release and drew a sharp comparison. He pointed straight at Tai Tuivasa, still on the roster despite an eight-fight losing streak.

“It’s unfortunate. They cut Michael ‘Venom’ Page, and they don’t cut [Tai Tuivasa]… The UFC is a different business,” Adesanya said, highlighting how decisions at the top are made fighter by fighter, not by any simple metric. In his words, the people in charge “go on a case-by-case basis” and operate with a ruthless, often opaque logic that only those in the room fully understand.

Adesanya has lived through those negotiations himself. He talked about “bodies buried in the desert,” a darkly vivid way of describing the unseen compromises, the hard lines, and the deals that never see daylight. Against that backdrop, Page’s situation, in his eyes, was a clear misstep.

“With Michael ‘Venom’ Page, I feel like they got it wrong on that one because he only lost to Ian Garry, who just went toe-to-toe with the pound-for-pound number one, Islam.”

For Adesanya, the record isn’t the only part of the story. It’s the way opponents react to Page that tells him how dangerous the Englishman still is.

“Michael is just a hard man to kill,” he said, before drawing on his own experience of how fear can freeze a fight. He described those moments in the cage where he can feel an opponent retreating into hesitation, waiting for a mistake, hoping for an opening that never comes. He sees the same dynamic when fighters face Page: they stall, they wait, they want him to overcommit. Meanwhile, he keeps touching them, “peppering” them, forcing them to deal with his rhythm.

“I’m like, ‘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 line could double as a verdict on Page’s UFC run. No freebies. No easy reads. Plenty of wins. Not enough fireworks for the brass.

Adesanya’s defence of Page wasn’t just emotional; it cut to the heart of how the UFC values entertainment. Page arrived from Bellator as a clear investment: a highlight-reel striker, a showman, a man whose very stance promised chaos. The pay reflected that. So did the expectations.

“You have to let people cook, give them time,” Adesanya argued. In his view, Page was doing the fundamental part of the job: he was winning. The problem, from the promotion’s side, may have been that they weren’t getting the Bellator version of “MVP” – the walk-off knockouts, the viral clips, the pure spectacle that had built his name long before he set foot in the UFC cage.

“Yeah, I understand he was a big investment from Bellator. He’s getting paid well. And he’s delivering, I think, ’cause he’s winning. But maybe they weren’t seeing what they were seeing in Bellator, and they were hoping for that kind of excitement… I find it exciting.”

There’s the split in one sentence. The purist and the promoter don’t always want the same thing. Adesanya sees craft, control, a fighter who makes opponents doubt themselves. The UFC, judging by its decision, wanted chaos, risk, something wilder.

Page now steps into free agency with his reputation intact and his future wide open. He leaves the UFC with a winning record, a single loss to a top contender, and the backing of one of the sport’s biggest stars ringing in his ears.

If this is a mistake, as Adesanya insists, another promotion will be more than happy to prove it.