Michael Page Takes ‘Can Crusher’ Jibes As A Compliment
Michael ‘Venom’ Page takes jibes about his level of opponents as a compliment. The British kickboxer scored a third knockout win since suffering the only defeat of his career. Newly crowned welterweight champion Douglas Lima left Page unconscious when they met earlier this year. Since then Page has been running through his opponents, although some in MMA have questioned their quality. ‘Venom’ has beaten relatively unknown fighters in Richard Keiley and Giovanni Melillo. However, on Saturday he beat a UFC veteran, Shinsho Anzai, in Japan. Despite this the can crusher jibes have kept on coming. But the 32-year-old welterweight takes it all in his stride. Speaking to MMA Fighting he said.
“Where I’m at now, I find it a bit of a compliment because we already know, for the people that truly understand MMA, they know these opponents, they know what they’ve gone through, they know their standard, and they’re still calling them a can.”
“That just means that I’m making them look like that, you know what I mean? It says I’m on the right track in terms of the fashion that I’m winning in. So, I know everyone keeps going on about this crushing cans thing. I’m going to start agreeing with you, and everybody can get it.” (Transcribed by BJPenn.com)
Although he is dealing with these opponents easily, Page is seriously hurting his career progression by fighting at that level. The 170lb champion has already said Page must step up his opposition to earn a rematch and that’s a fair point. Outside of his defeat to Lima, Page has only faced one previous step up in opposition against Paul Daley. Despite being known for his heavy hands ‘Semtex’ took Page down at will. In the end though it was ‘Venom’ who emerged victorious after earning a controversial decision. He’ll need to prove he can bridge the gap between his current opponents and Bellators best before he gets a shot at redemption against the champion Lima.
Does Michael ‘Venom’ Page need to step up his level of opposition?
