Video: Darren Till says he is expecting knee surgery after his loss to Robert Whittaker

Darren Till was second best in the main event of UFC on ESPN 14 last night. There the Liverpudlian lost a unanimous decision to former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker. The loss, his third in four fights, damaged Till’s title hopes. But it may have done some serious damage to his body as well.

At his post-fight press conference Till spoke about the fight and revealed his injury.

“I don’t like to sit here and I’m not the type [to make] excuses, but 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 (laughs)—It just blew my knee, like my knee just went *pwooo* under me, crashed. That was it then for the whole fight. I just had to stay static and sort of just fight on it.” (ht MMAFighting)

“I hid the pain even, I don’t think he recognized,” continued Till. “But I was still in there. I’m not trying to sit here and say, ‘Oh me knee gone,’ whatever. Maybe it just stopped me bouncing a bit, but it was a real good fight. I feel like I won it. I feel like we both won the fight—I’m not saying I feel like I won it, it’s just we both won. It was a clinically great match.”

Till said he was “probably gonna get a little bit of surgery now” to address the injury to his knee. After that, he said, he’ll be back in the gym preparing for his next contest.

“There’s millions of fights out there for me and I’m one of the top guys in this organization and I’m gonna continue to be.”

Till broke onto the UFC scene with an impressive elbow KO over Wendell de Oliveira at UFC Fight Night: Condit vs. Alves in 2015. He had his momentum dented slightly by a draw with Nicolas Dalby a few months later, but the Englishman then went on a four fight win streak that rocketed him up the welterweight rankings, eventually setting up a title shot versus then champion Tyron Woodley.

Till lost via submission to Woodley at UFC 228 in September 2018. After that he was knocked out Jorge Masvidal. After those losses Till moved up to middleweight and defeated Kelvin Gastelum via split decision.