Robert Whittaker respects Michael Page. He still could not bring himself to watch the fight.
Page beat Nursulton Ruziboev by unanimous decision at UFC Paris on Saturday, 29-28 across all three cards, in the last bout on his contract. The Accor Arena crowd booed. He was not given the in-cage interview a co-main event winner normally gets. On Monday, the UFC removed him from rankings eligibility, which points to him being off the roster.
Whittaker gave his honest answer on the MMArcade Podcast.
I’m going to be honest with you, no. No, I can’t, because I didn’t even want to watch it, and I have nothing but respect for MVP. His ability to do what he does at his age is crazy. It’s like he’s dancing in there. He’s so fast and fluid, but I find it so hard to tune in live to MVP winning via points, rather than watching it back afterwards. I reckon there isn’t a single person that can beat MVP over point-sparring in the UFC. He’s so good at it.
His theory is that Page is reading the fight like a scorecard.
I feel like it’s almost like he has a live feed of the judges’ scorecards, like, in real time. As soon as it starts to drop, he just does a little bit more, and it goes back up. He just does enough, which is the game, right? But man, it makes it hard to watch fights back when he’s doing that.
Whittaker also understands the calculation behind it.
He definitely is a puzzle for a lot of fighters. He’s not fun to fight for anyone. I don’t know, because as a fighter, and knowing that you get paid more if you win, it’s that tricky balance. Because also, he could go out next fight, listen to our comments, and go out there and just start throwing hands, get starched, cut, and that’s it.
If this is the end, Page leaves on a four-fight winning streak. He went 5-1 in the UFC with wins over Jared Cannonier, Kevin Holland, Shara Magomedov, Sam Patterson and Ruziboev, and a single loss to Ian Machado Garry. All six of his Octagon fights went the distance.
Page said before Paris that he and the UFC were clear middleweight was where he wanted to be, and that he was looking for more regular fights there. He also responded to the criticism afterward by promising to do better.
