It sounds like a matchup between two of Bellator’s English welterweight rivals will meet in the cage in 2018.
According to Scott Coker who spoke on The MMA Hour, Michael Page and Paul Daley will likely meet in early 2018 due to Daley’s desired fight schedule.
“What happened was, Paul called out MVP, and so we reached out to Paul and said, ‘hey, do you want to fight before September?’ And he said, ‘no, I don’t want to fight before September,’” Coker said (transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting). “He said, ‘I’ll fight MVP, but I’ll fight him at the beginning of the year.’
“So that fight will happen. It’s going to happen in London and it’ll probably be in the first quarter of next year.”
Meanwhile, it seems as if “MVP” will be looking to compete outside of MMA and in the sport of boxing to prepare for the hard-hitting Daley.
“We have a deal with the local promoter over there,” Coker said.
“We asked [Page], ‘do you want to kickbox or do you want to box?’ He prefers boxing. He wants to get a couple fights in, probably to get ready for Paul. Paul’s got some good hands. So we said, ‘go ahead and go do that,’ just like we did a deal with (boxing promoter) Lou DiBella (to promote some of his boxers in MMA), right?
“So it’s exactly the opposite. It’s like we’re kind of lending out MVP to go box, and then I told him, I said, ‘MVP, if you want to come kickbox or fight MMA before the end of the year after your boxing, you’re more than welcome to. Or if you want to take a couple boxing fights, go ahead and just get ready for this fight at the beginning of next year.”
Who do you see getting their hand raised when the two English rivals finally meet in the Bellator cage? Let’s get your prediction in the comment section!
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/5/2017.