Darren Till is not apologizing for how his fight with Yoel Romero went down at BKFC94 in Manchester on Saturday.
Theirs a highly anticipated clash ended up being a bit of a dull affair with a lot of clicking and standing around. In the end, the judges disagreed gave a five-round fight to Tillu by a score of 49-46, despite Romero scoring a knockdown (it didn’t count) and gouging “Gorilla” under his right eye.
“If I was bored and listened to the crowd and charged in, I would have gotten caught and fallen down and potentially been knocked out,” Till said at the post-fight press conference. “So parsing through a fight where you’re moving and watching and you know what he’s expecting and what he’s doing, I couldn’t get involved. So I had to play a chess match … and it just turned into five rounds where you’re just trying to pop each other.”
“It was just one of those fights. Over 18 years you’ve had those fights. He had a great fight against Luke (Rockhold) in the UFC, then he had a hell of a boring fight against (Israel) Adesanya… Well, I wouldn’t say boring because when you understand the mechanics of it, it was a great chess match at times. It is.”
“You know what, sometimes you have fights where you both just have to do what you can do, for example,” Till told talkSPORT. “Yoel is a big, big strong guy, you have to respect his strength, his size and his posture. So we had a good fight for five rounds, I think. The crowd loved it at times and I won. It was a close fight and I won and I’m happy.”
“One of the most feared men on earth, not many people want to fight Yoel. He’s a feared man. I didn’t get it (how he fought), so I had to be smart because when you’re an experienced fighter, you can’t just put your hands down and jump in. You take it. I had to figure out what I did and what . . .”
In the post-fight press conference, Till stated that he has many options, but that he is staying with Bare Knuckle FC for now.
“The owner of Misfits wished me luck before going out,” Till said. “The MVP owner wished me luck. Queensbury wished me luck. Right now I’m with Bare Knuckle. I’m with David (Feldman). I’m with the gang here right now … And I just want to see where it goes.”
“It’s brutal. My fingers hurt, my knuckles hurt, my face hurts. It’s just so exciting. I can sit here and say I’ve done every combat sport in the world. I don’t think there’s any more excitement or adrenaline. So right now I’m sticking with Bare Knuck.”
Till told talkSPORT that any discussion of a fight at the legendary Anfield stadium was done by BKFC, but he would not rule it out.
“If they bring it to my attention and they think they can do Anfield with me and Mike Perry or if they want to do Tommy (Fury) then that’s fine, I’m ready now,” he said. “I’m going to go away, heal my injuries and now I’m ready for this fight. I’ll sign and we’ll do it, we’ll start the press tour, we’ll start the promos. I’m ready for it.”
When asked how long it might take for the horrific cut under his eye to heal, Till laughed.
“I have no idea, I’ve never had a cut like that,” he said. “Not like this.”
