Recent winner, Michael ‘Venom’ Page believes current Bellator MMA welterweight titleholder, Douglas ‘The Phenom’ Lima has no interest in re-running their initial Bellator 221 meeting in May of last year – a clash he’s labelled as “close“.
Clashing with the Brazilian ace in the Bellator Welterweight World Grand Prix semi-final – Page dropped his first professional loss, with Lima executing a powerful calf kick which knocked Page off balance, before following up with a massive uppercut to knock the Londoner out.
In the time elapsed since then, Lima has gone on to reclaim the welterweight crown opposite UFC alum and current PFL feature, Rory MacDonald in a rematch – and is scheduled to finally meet with another former Octagon mainstay on October 29 at Bellator 250, as he tackles former middleweight best, Gegard Mousasi with vacant gold up for grabs.
For the polarizing Page, the 33-year-old has scored four wins since his first professional loss, stopping Richard Kiely, Giovanni Melitto, and Shinsho Anzai with strikes – prior to last weekend’s Bellator 248 uneventful unanimous decision win over promotional newcomer, former Cage Warriors welterweight best, Ross Houston in Paris, France.
Speaking with MMA Junkie following the curtain-closing tilt, Page who looks to continue his stride to the 170-pound throne in Lima’s absence to pursue middleweight gold, explained how he believes the Brazilian is “worried” about the potential outcome in a possible rematch following last May’s matching which he described as “close” prior to the second-round knockout.
“It does feel like, more and more, every fight that I have now, he (Douglas Lima) is more and more trying to undermind what I’m doing. And I think its simply because he and I both know how close that fight was, sorry, how much success that I was getting in that fight up until that point. He even admitted it afterwards how fast I was, that he’d never come up against anybody with that kind of speed. He said all these amazing things and had a lot to say about me as an athlete directly after the fight.“
“And now that I want to get back in, I think he doesn’t want that, you know? I think he’s almost as worried about what could happen the second time around which is why near enough every fight I hear something that suggests he doesn’t want to make this fight happen again. Which for me, means I live in his head.” (H/T BJPENN.com)
Whilst sights are firmly placed on avenging his sole professional loss – Page put a somewhat lacklustre performance in Paris last weekend down to a slippery canvas, which forced him to alter his style toward a display which strayed away from his usual karate, point-fighting bouncing style.