Dana White says the decision on Michael Page was not his to make.
White confirmed this week that Page will not be offered a new deal after his six-fight contract expired, despite a 5-1 record in the Octagon. Asked to explain that, he pointed at the people who book the fights.
Listen, at the end of the day, the matchmakers make the decisions on who stays and who goes and they didn’t want to re-sign him.
Page had seen it coming. He said after beating Nursulton Ruziboev in Paris that he doubted he would be re-signed, and he had said in August that he wanted assurances from the UFC before putting his name to anything new.
Those assurances were about activity. Page has been open about his frustration getting booked, which is why he has moved between welterweight and middleweight, and he has said he cannot tell whether nobody wants to fight him or the UFC did not want to put him in big matchups.
The style is the sticking point either way. All six of his Octagon fights went to a decision. Robert Whittaker said this week that he could not bring himself to watch the Paris fight live and that nobody in the UFC beats Page over what he called point-sparring, while acknowledging the logic behind it given fighters get paid more for winning.
He is not short of somewhere to go. Dave Feldman has said BKFC would take him back, on the grounds that you cannot really be boring under those rules. Jake Paul has gone further, claiming he will sign Page to MVP MMA ahead of what he has billed as a big year for the promotion in 2027. Most Valuable Promotions merged with the PFL in July.
Page leaves as a ranked middleweight on a four-fight winning streak, with wins over Jared Cannonier, Kevin Holland, Shara Magomedov, Sam Patterson and Ruziboev, and a single loss to Ian Machado Garry at UFC 303.
