Michael Page walked out at the Copper Box in London on Saturday night to the Undertaker’s theme, mixed with another track, after KSI spent a long stretch of the Misfits 30 broadcast announcing his own return as CEO of the promotion and his retirement from boxing. When the crowd work finally ended, the reveal was MVP. Page confirmed a multi-fight, multi-year agreement with Misfits, which now runs under the MF Sports banner. Ariel Helwani reported on X that the contract is exclusive across combat sports, with grappling and wrestling carved out, and that Misfits has “big plans for him.”
There’s no debut date yet. Page said in a statement that his first Misfits appearance would come in the coming months, and Bloody Elbow reported he’s expected back in a boxing ring later this year. Yahoo Sports noted that neither Page nor KSI specified whether he’ll compete in boxing, MMA or both.
Why the UFC let a 5-1 fighter go
Page is 26-3 in MMA, turned 39 in April, and left the UFC on a four-fight win streak: Shara Magomedov, Jared Cannonier at UFC 319, Sam Patterson, and Nursulton Ruziboev by unanimous decision at UFC Paris on Sept. 5. The only loss came against Ian Machado Garry at UFC 303. Every one of those six fights went to the judges. For a man whose MMA career started with a first-round tornado kick TKO at UCMMA 26 in 2012, that stat is the entire explanation.
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Page’s foundation is freestyle kickboxing and sport karate, the points-fighting world where he won 10 kickboxing world championships and most of his big international medals came in semi-contact divisions. In that format the touch is the currency. You land clean, the action stops, you reset, you land again. My read is that his UFC run was that game played in four-ounce gloves. He won the range battle against almost everyone and declined to spend much time anywhere he could get hit back. That keeps you undefeated on the scorecards and makes you very hard to sell.
Page didn’t hide from it. After the Ruziboev win he acknowledged he’d fallen short on volume, and one fan quoted by Essentially Sports summed up the mood with “Can’t wait for single-digit significant strikes per round but now in boxing.” Cageside Press pointed out that the lack of finishes hurt him with casual fans and with UFC brass, while also noting the matchmaking did him few favors. Ruziboev and Patterson were puzzling assignments, and he kept bouncing between welterweight and middleweight. I agree with that part. It’s hard to build momentum when the opponents make no sense on paper and the division changes every other fight. The Cannonier fight, the one Essentially Sports singled out as his only impressive UFC outing, was also the one where the opponent had a name people recognized.
Page expected the UFC to come back with a lower offer and negotiate from there. It never came. On The Ariel Helwani Show he said the way his exit was handled bothered him: “I found that quite disrespectful, to be fair.” Jake Paul publicly showed interest in bringing him to Most Valuable Promotions, but that didn’t materialize either. So he landed at the shop that came to the table.
How the style travels to a boxing ring
This is where it gets interesting technically. Page’s kicking range in MMA forced opponents to respect his entire body, and that respect is what bought him the space to pick shots. Take the kicks away and that leverage shrinks. Opponents only have to track two weapons, and the distance he loves to live at becomes easier to read.
He has done this before, though. Page is 2-0 as a pro boxer with two knockouts, beating Jonathan Castano and Michał Ciach. His lone loss under striking-only rules was a decision to Mike Perry in BKFC in 2022. My read on that record: when the opponent is happy to let Page set the pace, he finishes people, and when someone is willing to absorb a few shots to make it ugly, he can be outworked over the distance.
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Now look at the Misfits roster. The promotion’s identity is celebrity crossover bouts and influencer cards. Saturday’s main event was Joey Essex vs. Dapper Laughs. Against people who don’t know how to cut off a ring, a points fighter with Page’s timing is going to look spectacular, and I’d expect the knockouts to come back. The replies calling him boring and the replies predicting he’ll destroy everyone can both turn out to be right, depending on who Misfits puts across from him.
The in-ring promo was pure Page. He told the crowd, “I feel free. That’s all I can say, I feel free,” and said he wants “every name in the book, I’m here for it.” In a press statement, KSI described him as “a superstar, he’s explosive, and fans are going to love watching him in the ring with us.” Bloody Elbow described the full segment as cringe-worthy, and Essentially Sports noted the crowd reaction was muted. That doesn’t matter much. The fight itself decides whether this works.
The MMA door is open
The exclusive language matters because Misfits has run MMA before. Dillon Danis won the inaugural MF MMA light heavyweight title in August 2025, and that’s his only fight for the promotion to date. Cris Cyborg weighed in on X: “MVP could become @MisfitsBoxing and misfits MMA champion.” The logic holds as a business matter. Page spent his UFC run between 170 and 185, so any title fight with the existing belt would mean a weight negotiation. But a crossover promotion with one MMA champion and a newly signed 26-3 striker has an obvious poster to print.
My pick for the debut is a boxing match on a UK card before the end of the year, against a recognizable name rather than a real boxer, and Page wins it inside the distance. Then we find out whether Misfits will ever book him someone willing to walk him down.
