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“Everyone keeps going on about this ‘crushing cans.’ And I’m going to start agreeing with you, and everyone ‘can’ get it.”
Another highlight reel knockout victory in the books for Michael ‘Venom’ Page (17-1 MMA), but ‘MVP’ finds himself under fire following his latest KO win over Shinsho Anzai (11-4 MMA) at Bellator Japan on Saturday.
Despite continually pushing for a rematch with Bellator welterweight champion Douglas Lima, Page has been criticized for accepting fights against overmatched opponents and padding his record against ‘cans’.
Page responded to the criticism at a Bellator 237 post-fight media scrum, telling reporters that he is making his opponents look like cans because of how slick he is in the cage.
”Where I’m at now, I find it a bit of a compliment,” Page said of the ‘can crusher’ label (h/t Ryan Harkness of MMA Mania). “Because we already know, people that truly understand MMA, they know these opponents, they know what they’ve gone through, they know their standard. And they still call them a can. That just means I’m making them look like that. It says I’m on the right track in terms of the fashion I’m winning in. Everyone keeps going on about this ‘crushing cans.’ And I’m going to start agreeing with you, and everyone ‘can’ get it.”
With Page’s sole KO loss to Lima, the London Shootfighter wants to get back in the cage with the Brazilian ASAP but believes ‘The Phenom’ is avoiding him.
”I just find, for me, Lima’s response quite weird,” Page said. “It just says a lot about maybe where his heads at, in terms of he wanted to fight me before and then I came back quite quickly, I had a few fights and now he’s ‘not interested.’ Talks of him going up and this and that. Feels like he’s trying to distance himself as much as possible. Everybody else is what it is. I’m just going to keep fighting til he can’t get away from me. And I will get that, I will get that back. That’s the only thing that’s sitting on my record so I’m going to be reminded of you over and over again. So I’m coming back and it’s going to be a fun night that night.”
Lima beat Rory MacDonald to reclaim the welterweight title at Bellator 232 and has hinted at moving up to middleweight rather than accepting a rematch with Page, who is now on a three-fight KO streak since losing to Lima earlier this year at Bellator 221.