UFC: Till Wants To Go Through Whittaker To Get To Adesanya

Darren Till is an expert at overcoming adversity. This time last year the Liverpudlian ‘Gorilla’ was battling his inner demons, following back to back losses against Tyron Woodley and Jorge Masvidal.

Coming off his first professional loss, Till entered the sold out O2 Arena at UFC London for his main event with Masvidal stating, “I’m going to f***ing murder this guy”.

Unfortunately, Till paid a heavy price for that emotional approach, when Masvidal capitalised on his overcommitment to secure a second round TKO victory in enemy territory. However, he overcame the negativity and bounced back with a huge win over a highly motivated Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 244.

Till now has his eyes firmly fixed on a match-up with former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker this August. The Australian superstar has recently returned to action following some challenging personal struggles of his own. Till has since formed a banterous rapport with his future opponent on social media and the two aren’t afraid to praise each others’ abilities.

In a recent interview, Whittaker acknowledged his respect for Till and admitted that the two may even become friends when their fight is all done.

“I find him funny. I think a lot of his posts are funny. He seems like my sort of cat. He’s the sort of guy that I can tell like we’re going to punch on and be friends afterwards. But [I’m] certainly looking forward to the fight. Just because we fight doesn’t mean we have to hate each other. I’ve never understood that. I understand fighting is very serious and there’s a lot into it and I treat it as such, but I’ve never hated any of my opponents. It just is what it is. This is our job.”

Although he is penciled in to face Whittaker this summer, Till suggested that he should coach the freshly commissioned series of The Ultimate Fighter, opposite the current UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya. But his offer was met with a definitive rejection from ‘The Last Stylebender’.

It wasn’t all negativity from Adesanya though. Till appeared on the latest episode of MMA Fighting‘s Eurobash podcast, where he opened up about the rapport he’s built up with the champion online.

“He messaged me the other day like, ‘Darren, KFC’s back open mate, get your fat arse down there.’ I was like, ‘I’ll be there mate, don’t worry.’ He’s actually a good guy, he is.”

Darren now believes that an impressive performance against Robert Whittaker may force Adesanya to reconsider his TUF proposition.

“He f***ed me off for the f***in’ Ultimate Fighter, he said ‘No.’ So I was like, ‘Okay…okay…wait until I f***in’ burst Robert Whittaker’s head and then we’ll see what you’re saying, you stupid, scrawny little c***!’”

Despite the fictional ‘beef’ that the media have recently tried desperately to craft, Till dosn’t show any ill will towards the champ.

“Listen mate, we are going to fight. I don’t care what anyone says; we are going to fight and the best man will win. I believe I will beat him and I will become the middleweight champion. We will fight. It will be for the culture, for the fans and for the people — the culture of Muay Thai, kickboxing, everything. It’s going to be epic, but until then, I’ve got no hard feeling towards that man. I’m going to punch a hole through his face and he’s probably going to punch one through mine. He gets the joke, he gets the banter, he gets that we’re frienemies. Let’s make this f***ing fight massive.”

If Darren Till can get past Robert Whittaker, would you like to see him and Israel Adesanya go head-to-head on TUF?


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