Michael “Venom” Page likes to have a good time in and out of the Octagon.
UFC 299 saw the long-awaited promotional debut of former Bellator Welterweight staple, Page, when he took on Kevin Holland. In vintage fashion, “MVP” styled on “Big Mouth” to score a unanimous decision victory in a clinical striking performance.
However, Page attracted eyeballs of UFC fans around the world on his way to the Octagon with another captivating entrance. Utilizing a Mark “Undertaker” Calaway World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) theme, Page got everyone in attendance even more excited for his debut.
Well, everyone except for UFC CEO, Dana White, who made it clear afterward that we could expect less flash in the future.
MICHAEL “VENOM” PAGE’S WALKOUT IN HIS UFC DEBUT #UFC299 pic.twitter.com/3LyT5YW6IS
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 10, 2024
“I get it,” Page said on The MMA Hour. “I’m going to keep trying, I’m going to keep pushing, keep pushing. I’m going to keep coming up with creativity. I just can’t turn that side off of me and I love to entertain. Regardless, I’m going to keep pushing. I’m probably going to annoy a few people but hopefully, they understand what I’m trying to do for everybody. Undertaker himself Tweeted about it, and that was on half the performance. If he saw [what I wanted] it would have been even bigger.”
As cool and unique as the introduction may have been for one of Bellator’s previous biggest stars, Page had an even grander idea he wanted to do with his entrance that could have taken it to the next level. If you’ve ever seen WWE and Undertaker, think about the supernatural elements.
“Initially, it’s Undertaker’s track that comes in and then it starts to drop, the intro into the remix track that my brother-in-law has made, and we start to kind of cook in that area,” Page said. “What happens initially is the lights go dark, everybody is looking at the tunnel, waiting for me to walk out. The spotlight was going to go onto the cage, and I was going to be in the cage.
“So everyone is going to be like, ‘Wait, what?’” he continued. “I’m there in a hood and uniform, I do my sign just as the tune really drops, I do my sign and when it drops, the lights cut again and come back on and I’m in the same position back at the tunnel. So everyone is like, ‘Wait, what?’”
“What it was, my brother was going to be the one in the cage and have the hood on,” Page added. “Anytime I lose weight, me and him look so similar. He’s got hair, but because’s got the hood on, you can’t tell. Stature-wise, he looks exactly like me. At the time, people would have been like, ‘What just happened?!’ They would have been blown away by that and then I would have come with the same energy entrance and walk in. But definitely, I think people would have been blown away by that.”
Page, 36, got his UFC run off to as good of a start as he could have asked for, barring a finish of the always-durable Holland. The win got MVP back on a winning streak and will surely slot him in the promotion’s rankings come the next update.
Ultimately, the better he performs, the better chance he’ll get to fully maximize his showmanship, believes the London, England native.
“He seems like he’s against it,” Page said of White. “This is something I always suspected. Anytime I thought of myself in the UFC I thought, ‘I may piss him off a little bit.’ (laughs) But I think, at the end of the day, if I do what I do in the cage, on the other side he will allow even for things that annoy him to exist, in my opinion. So I’ve just got to keep making sure I put on good performances. It’s almost like paying the meter. Those KOs and flashy, attractive wins is putting in the meter and hopefully, I get some credit on the other side.”
For complete UFC 299 results and play-by-play, click HERE.