Darren Till loves fighting but it hasn’t always been that way for the former UFC title challenger.
Long before he was a boxer on Misfits, Liverpool’s Darren Till made his pro MMA debut in 2013 and two years later, his UFC debut. Till went undefeated at 17-0-1 before suffering a loss to then-champion Tyron Woodley for the welterweight title, for which Jake Paul recently went after him.
Since then, it’s been a rocky few years for Till, going 1-4 in his final five UFC fights. The last nail in the coffin? A brawl against current middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis.
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Darren Till was ‘just so injured’ in late UFC run
Till gave du Plessis one of his toughest fights en route to the title at UFC 282 in 2022. Till had much for du Plessis on the feet, but the South African found a win to win like he always has in the UFC, submitting ‘The Gorilla’ in the third round.
Heading into what would be his last UFC bout, Till reveals his disdain for MMA at the time, coming off serious injuries from previous top contender fights. “I love fighting,” Till made clear to Seconds Out.
“When I was on like [doing] MMA back when I was coming to the [UFC] end, I hated MMA… Not, ‘I hated it’, it was just, I was just so injured, man.”
Till tore both his MCL and ACL in back-to-back fights against former champ Robert Whittaker and Derek Brunson. “It just used to get to me on the day, like I was always injected up to f— just to get through the day,” he continued. “So yeah, that was sort of that.”
Darren Till recalls Dricus du Plessis like ‘fighting a baby’
A 6-5-1 record fighting the best in the world in the UFC, you could say no loss has aged better for Till than the champ Dricus du Plessis – a bout the Scouser thought he was winning.
“Honestly, look at what’s he done to everyone,” Till said of his former foe. “Israel Adesanya, Sean Strichland, Robert Whittaker… I’m the only guy who pieced him up on the feet. He didn’t have nothing for me on the feet.
“It felt like I was fighting a baby,… Obviously, then he got me down – but yeah, we’ll see it when I go back. Me and Dana [White] are good, really good.”
After a rough patch in MMA, his UFC release in 2023, things are looking up for Till after a TKO win over Misfits Boxing Champion Anthony ‘Pretty Boy’ Taylor in January and his next boxing match booked against fellow UFC veteran Darren Stewart on Mar. 29 in Manchester, England.