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“Big John” McCarthy stood by his comments during a recent Bellator broadcast stating Michael “Venom” Page has a better record than Anderson Silva
During the Bellator Japan broadcast more than a week ago, former referee turned color commentator “Big John” McCarthy stated how he thinks Michael “Venom” Page holds a better record than Anderson Silva. Given the nature of such a controversial comment, it drew criticism from fans.
In a recent episode of the Weighing In podcast he co-hosts with Bellator lightweight Josh Thomson, McCarthy explained the logic behind his statement.
“I’m not talking about Anderson over his entire career,” McCarthy said (transcript by The Body Lock MMA). “If you want to break his career into sections, I can say this and say at the beginning, his first 16, 17, 18 fights, Anderson Silva had decent competition at times, good competition at times, and bad competition at other times.
“He fought and lost to Daiju Takase. Takase was 4-7. His [Silva] first 20 fights, he was 16-4. He fought good fighters in Jeremy Horn. [Hayato] Sakurai. Sakurai was a 170-pounder. He was small. It’s a good win over a good opponent but he’s fighting way out of his weight class.”
McCarthy then went through Page’s resumé, disputing the “can crusher” accusations thrown by some fans.
“MVP has fought one fighter with a losing record his entire career and that was his second fight,” he explained. “Every other fighter he’s fought has had a winning record. So you can’t sit there and say they’re giving him cans.
“If you don’t like Michael Venom Page, fine, you don’t like him. I’m telling you he’s one of the most exciting fighters I’ve ever seen. That’s just as simple as it gets — he is exciting to watch. He is fun to watch. He puts on a show. Now has he had bad fights? Yeah. He had fights where he didn’t do what he was supposed to do. And won against guys like Fernando Gonzalez, a very tough fighter and a guy that has fought guys that Anderson Silva fought [Alex Stiebling]. … Gonzalez beat Alex Stiebling.
“If you look at MVP and you match them up correctly — MVP has 18 fights so I was going off of him having 17 fights — it matches up very well. It does not mean that MVP’s career can be matched with Anderson’s career at this moment.”
The 32-year-old Page has so far lost one fight in his career when he was knocked out by Douglas Lima last May. He has since bounced back with three straight wins, his most recent one happening at Bellator Japan where he knocked out Shinsho Anzai in the second round.