Darren Till non-committal on future division: ‘Let’s do middle, let’s do welter’ 

Darren Till has continued to hint at a move to middleweight by proposing a clash between himself and Kelvin Gastelum via Instagram, but in a recent interview “The Gorilla” remained undecided on what weight class he will compete in when he returns to action towards the end of this year.

The Liverpudlian is adamant that he hasn’t given the move up to middleweight a lot of thought following consecutive losses at welterweight—the first losses of his professional career—to Tyron Woodley and Jorge Masvidal.

“I haven’t thought about it much,” Till told MMA Fighting’s Eurobash podcast. “Let’s do middle, let’s do welter—let’s do every f*cking weight because at the end of the day I’m really not scared of any man.”

The Team Kaobon frontrunner claims he is just focused on training and evolving as a fighter.

“As I’ve said, the only thing I’m doing is cracking on with my training. I’m training very hard and I’ve started doing a few extra things. I’ve implemented a lot of swimming into my game. I’ve been lifting a little bit of weights and I’ve put on some size and I’m trying to clean up the nutrition since there’s no fight camp,” said Till.

“Colin’s always put it in out heads to train all year round to get better, and I’ve kind of lost that. Last year, maybe I was only training for fights when I’ve never really been like that. Listen, I only started training when I was 18; I haven’t really been doing MMA for a helluva long time, not like a lot of these guys who have been doing this since they were kids. I’ve progressed fast, I’ve got to the highest level you can in MMA. That’s because I’ve always wanted to evolve, right now that’s all I’m doing in my life—taking care of my kids and evolving.”

The former welterweight title challenger underlined that his focus is on fighting top-level opposition, regardless of what weight class the bouts take place in.

“It’s just good to fight all these top-level guys whether they’re in the welterweight division, middleweight or wherever. There’s not one slouch inside that UFC Octagon; they’re all top-level fighters. For me, it’s not about a fresh start, it’s about fighting these unbelievable guys and being one of those unbelievable guys, getting all the challenges every fight until the day I retire when I’m 35.”

Despite being undecided on his fighting future, Till acknowledged that a move to middleweight would make life easier for him ahead of contests.

“It would be more like relaxation for my head because I wouldn’t have to worry about the weight; the weight cut won’t be as big because there would be a few less kilos to cut, which I think would be a big weight off my mind. Nothing is set in stone yet, so we’ll see where the end of this year leads me,” he said.

Check out the latest episode of Eurobash. The Darren Till interview beings at 12:00.