It appears that we won’t be seeing Darren Till instead the octagon for a while.
Last Saturday, Till went toe-to-toe with former UFC Middleweight Champion Robert Whittaker and the 27-year-old took Whittaker to the limit in the main event. Till ultimately loss the match-up, though it was an extremely close encounter that could’ve went either way.
Following his bout against Whittaker, Till revealed that he actually suffered a knee injury early on during the fight, which will most likely require surgery (Transcript courtesy of MMA Junkie):
“I’m not that type of guy to make excuses,” Till told reporters. “I have to give credit to Rob. In the second round he knee stomped me like I did to Stephen Thompson. They should be illegal. No. It just blew my knee straight out – my knee just (blew) under me, crashed. I couldn’t – that was it for the whole fight. I couldn’t do it the whole fight. I just had to fight. I hid the pain. I don’t think he recognized.
“I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘My knee gone.’ Whatever. Maybe just stopped me bouncing a bit. It was a real good fight. I feel like I won it. I feel like we both won it. We both won the fight. We both won. It was a clinically neat match. Going to get a bit of surgery now. I want to get back in the game. I’ll fix that, and there’s millions of fights out there for me. I’m one of the top guys in this organization, and I’m going to continue to be.”
Despite losing, Till isn’t down on the results as the Liverpool native feels that the fight could’ve went either way on Saturday night:
“I’ve never felt like this after a loss,” Till said. “I feel OK. He was tough. It was probably one of the toughest fights I’ve been in. It was just so stressful. It was such a chess match. Neither guy wants to throw, and when they threw they were looking to knock out. I think I caught him more than he caught me with the power, three or four times, in the first round especially. But I think it was probably 2-2 going into the fifth, and maybe the judges scored the takedown, but I was getting up every time. I don’t know how it works. Close fight. He’s a former champion. I’m up there. I’ve shown it, especially striking. … I’m OK, I am OK.”
So where does Till go from here? Once the fighter recovers from his knee injury then he’ll continue fighting on, hopefully in a rematch against Whittaker:
“If Rob doesn’t get the title shot, I would love to go to New Zealand and fight with him,” Till said. “It’s up to my coach, Colin, and my team and my family and my friends. Maybe I lacked a few things we worked on in the gym. It was disappointing. But I sit here saying convincingly I’m going to be the champion. Either one could’ve been the guy tonight.”