Darren Till is brimming with confidence after his successful middleweight debut.
After dropping two straight, including a title fight, at welterweight, Till (18-2-1 MMA, 6-2-1 UFC) decided to finally make the move up to 185 pounds and took on one of the toughest tests immediately. Till defeated former UFC interim middleweight title challenger Kelvin Gastelum via split decision earlier this month at UFC 244, and all of a sudden everyone wants a piece of him.
Till believes people started writing him off after his losses to Tyron Woodley and Jorge Masvidal. But now that he’s back in the win column, everyone wants to face him.
“The people forget the fighter I was before I got knocked out,” Till said in an interview with BT Sport. “Forget the Woodley fight. People forget the fighter I was, what I done to the best striker in the UFC, Stephen Thompson, where I calm and calculatedly beat him, nearly knocked him out. Look at the performance he’s just had, or before that (Donald Cerrone), or before that all the European stars I was just taking out, or before that when I was in Brazil just taking names, or even before that. So now they’re all just calling me out. I’m the money man in the division.”
“Forget the champion: it’s me,” Till added. “They all know what they want. Maybe they’re all seeing it as easy money – not a chance. Not a chance, mate.”
Former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and rising contender Jared Cannonier are among the names that have expressed interest in facing Till, but Till said since everyone is calling him out, he might as well call the shots.
“I’ll pick,” Till said. “I’ll just see who I want to fight because they’re all calling me out for a reason, so obviously I’m holding all the chips.”
