Paul Daley not impressed by Michael Page KO win: ‘You can’t continually beat these kinds of opponents’
Paul Daley is not happy with the level of competition Michael Page is fighting.
Page, who was in the welterweight grand prix, got past Daley in the quarters then was knocked out by Douglas Lima in the semis. Since then, he has been fighting promotional newcomers in Gianni Melillo and before that Richard Kiely who had just four fights.
For Daley, he wants the rematch as he believes he won the first fight, but he is very mad at who Page is fighting.
“In my mind, I thought I won that fight,” Daley said on the Bellator London broadcast (via Bloody Elbow). “The only way to make it more convincing to everybody else is to take him out before the judges. If that fight is going to happen it needs to be a big fight. It needs to happen here [in London] in 2020, at Wembley in 2020.
“This is ridiculous,” Daley said.
“You can’t continually beat these kinds of opponents. Yes, he knocks them out, but he’s expected to knock them out. What does this prove, the fact that he knocked out a guy nobody will remember? It proves nothing. It proves nothing at all. Why didn’t he do that to me? Why didn’t he do that to Douglas Lima? Because he’s not of that caliber.”
Daley believes Page needs to rematch him or fight a top-welterweight in order to prove he is as good as he says. Or, if he wants to get a title shot.
“I need to see more from Michael Page, in my opinion, whether it’s a rematch with me or a rematch with another top-tier fighter,” Daley said. “Does a win over this guy warrant a title shot? In my opinion, it doesn’t.”
In the end, Paul Daley, like many, wonder how good Michael Page is truly is and hopes he can start to fight tough guys.
“Yes, he’s a star. Yes, people love him. But can he really fight? The two times he’s stepped up, on paper, he’s got a ‘victory’ over me. Most people, including me, thought he lost that fight,” he explained. “The second time he stepped up against the champion, who I went three rounds with, he gets knocked out cold. So he needs to fight solid opponents instead of feeding him these guys.”
