Michael "Venom" Page will fight Paul Daley in the main event of Bellator 216.
British welterweights Michael “Venom” Page and Paul Daley will meet in the main event of Bellator 216 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Saturday.
The prelims start at 7:30 p.m. ET and the main card starts at 10 p.m. ET. Neither will be on regular cable TV in the US, but you can watch a live stream of MVP vs Daley and the complete Bellator 216 card via DAZN.
You can start a free one-month trial of DAZN right here, and you can then watch all the fights live on your computer via DAZN.com, or on your phone, tablet, smart TV, Roku, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the DAZN app.
Bellator 216 Preview
Michael “Venom” Page — perhaps better known as MVP — and Paul Daley will meet in the main event, competing to advance post the first round of the Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix.
Page, 31, is 13-0 in his MMA career, but he won seven world championships as a kickboxer before his changing sports. They 35-year-old Daley is far more experienced as an MMA fighter, with a record of 40-16-2.
He fought in the UFC three times from 2009 to 2010, going 2-1, but was released from the promotion for a late hit after a loss to Josh Koscheck at UFC 113. UFC president Dana White said Page was banned “for 100 years.”
British rivals Page and Daley have flirted with a bout for over two years.
“He’s lost the plot,” Page said of Daley, according to MMAjunkie. “For me, he’s very impulsive. He’s very childish. … I can’t remember how many years ago now he was in the UFC, hit someone after the fight was done because he lost. He’s childish, and that’s exactly what he’s shown again. He has not grown in the however many years it’s been. It’s probably been over 10 years, and he still has not grown.”
Daley has resisted the urge to match Page’s trash talk leading up to the fight.
“His attempts to get under my skin are slightly desperate. It gives me comfort that he has nothing else going for him or at least, he feels that. He needs to get some kind of advantage prior to fight night.”
“I think he himself knows he has a long way to go in this sport as far as level of competition and experience,” Daley said, according to The Telegraph. “It’s all been plain sailing for him. Everything’s gone right and the way he wants it. It’s when it doesn’t that we saw what he’s made of. Everyone’s got to start somewhere. What has got him to this position is partly his performance and partly his social media. It’s pretty much the way [Conor] McGregor elevated himself to a fight with Floyd Mayweather.”
“If you do well at those kind of things and you’re aware of their impact, then more power to you.”
Daley added that the bout could be a boon for the sport in the United Kingdom.
“The magnitude of the event is apparent. I’ve been doing so much media – ESPN, Sports Illustrated – all the newspapers and papers,” Daley told The Telegraph. “They’ve all got behind the fight. It’s great not only for me and Page, but for UK MMA too. For two UK fighters to be getting so much attention in the US and headlining an event is ridiculous.”