Michael Page’s first shot at a Bellator title will come on home soil.
According to Bellator president Scott Coker, the promotion is planning a welterweight title fight between newly crowned champion Yaroslav Amosov (26-0 MMA, 7-0 BMMA) and Page (20-1 MMA, 16-1 BMMA) in the second quarter of 2022.
“We are in the process of putting that fight together now with him and MVP to fight in London at some point early next year,” Coker told MMA Junkie.
Since suffering his first career loss to Douglas Lima in the Bellator welterweight grand prix semifinals in 2019, “MVP” has won five straight, en route to his long-awaited rematch with Lima. Page would exact his revenge by edging Lima out at Bellator 267 in October, but with the series tied at one-a-piece, Page wanted an immediate trilogy bout to put a definitive end to their rivalry.
But Coker is glad to see Page opt for a title shot instead and thinks the Brit has all the time in the world to settle his score with Lima.
“I know MVP was kinda back-and-forth, do I want to fight Lima again, do I want to fight Amosov and then we said hey, just go think about it,” Coker said. “Our opinion as a company is you want to take the next step. You want to go fight for the belt now. This is your time. If you don’t do it now, when are you gonna do it? and then you can come back and fight Lima again in the future. So to me, it’s the right fight to put together. I think it’ll happen in the second quarter. It will be in London and it will be a massive fight over there because he’s such a big star.
“Believe me, a lot of people are saying well Amosov is so good and he’s – yeah he is that good and that’s why his record is undefeated. But MVP has a very unique style and he’s very hard to hit, to catch and it’s gonna be interesting to see how Amosov handles that because he’s fighting like a very awkward, karate style combatant and it’s not like your normal MMA fighter that’s just very straight forward, maybe a little bit more linear. He’s doing a lot of crazy stuff and that’s why people love him, but that fight will happen at some point in 2022 for sure.”