Michael 'Venom' Page calls for Douglas Lima trilogy after controversial Bellator MMA win

• Michael "Venom" Page edged a controversial decision in his hometown Friday at Bellator 267.
• Insider scored the fight for Page, but there was a strong case for a Douglas Lima victory, too.
• Page told Insider and other media members after the fight that he'd welcome another Lima match.

LONDON - Michael "Venom" Page called for a Douglas Lima trilogy match after his controversial Bellator MMA win Friday at the SSE Arena in London, England.

The British fighter Page edged Brazil's Muay Thai expert Lima via split decision after three rounds of welterweight drama, which was admittedly light on action.

Page struck Lima well in rounds one and two, and knocked him down multiple times.

Midway through the opener, Lima did take Page to the floor and kept him there, but was unable to score too much damage as the home fighter tied him up and waited for the bell to call time on the first.

In the first match between these fighters in 2019, Lima secured the first-ever MMA win over Page with a leg kick and uppercut combination. He almost replicated that feat in the rematch, but missed his opponent's chin.

Lima took the third round in what was a close fight, with Insider scoring the bout the same as the two judges who gave Page the 29-28 edge. One judge saw Lima as the winner.

Page said immediately after the confirmation of his win that he wanted the bling - i.e., the Bellator welterweight championship shot against current king Yaroslav Amosov.

However, speaking to Insider and other reporters in a post-event media scrum, he said he'd welcome a third fight with Lima, too.

"I'm probably going to push to just get this one back again," Page said, adding that a five-round fight could settle a winner in this 170-pound rivalry. "Why not? Let's go longer. Because if by the end of the third, that had happened again, I've got two more rounds to find you and finish it properly."

He later said: "I won, but I didn't get to prove what I wanted to prove, which is just make his eyes roll into the back of his head and not get back up, so I prefer to run it back."

The victory advanced his pro MMA record to 20 wins (12 knockouts, three submissions, and five decisions) against the sole loss to Lima.

Elsewhere at Bellator 267, a fan-attended event broadcast on BBC iPlayer in the UK and Showtime in the US, Leah McCourt beat Jessica Borga by a comfortable decision.

Lewis Long scored a 41-second rear-naked choke against Michael Dubois on the prelims, after Jack Grant beat Nathan Jones with punches.

One fighter, Kane Mousah, was cut so bad in the middle of a bout it looked like he'd been hit with an axe.

And a new star was born as Bellator fighter Luke Trainer gave his opponent a no good, very bad, brutal bludgeoning which you can see right here.