Michael Page: Ian Garry Will Never Become UFC Champion

Having shared the Octagon with Ian Garry , Michael Page believes the Irishman will never win an Ultimate Fighting Championship title.

Page (22-3) faced a steep step up in competition when he took on Garry (15-0) in his sophomore promotional clash at UFC 303 last month. Despite getting dominated by Garry on the ground, “MVP” put on a valiant effort in the striking exchanges en route to a unanimous decision loss. While he doesn’t want to make excuses, Page claims he wasn’t quite himself on fight night.

“There’s a lot of mistakes I made,” Page said on The MMA Hour. “Don’t want to make too many excuses but there was a bit of a weird build up as well. And I always tried to stay focused on what I need to get done. But I had a few issues I needed to overcome in the build up to the fight… Wasn’t quite myself.”

While Garry had vowed to outstrike Page, the former Bellator MMA star was evidently faster and landed the more damaging shots in the striking exchanges. While Page believes he could have done certain things differently to rope in a decision victory, he claims to be the kind who likes to finish fights.

“Ian said he’s this level of a striker, he’s this fast, he didn’t want to strike with me. I told people the same thing all the time. When I’m bouncing around in front of you, it’s a very different game… There was a couple of decisions during the fight I could have made and one better to maybe scrape the result but that’s just not me. Like I prefer to go and get a finish and I wanted to knock him out.”

Garry’s performance against Page failed to impress many, including Dana White, who said the fight should have been scored a draw. Judging by Garry’s stand-up game against a striker like himself, Page also believes “The Future” doesn’t stand a chance against elite contenders like Shavkat Rakhmonov or the champ Leon Edwards .

“Not at all, no [Garry will never be champion]. Cause if that’s the game you’re going to go when you get a decent striker, then Leon’s [Edwards] going to kill you anyway, then Shavkat’s [Rakhmonov] going to kill you anyway. There’s a few guys in there that I just don’t see him surpassing.”