Darren Till had what looked like a star-making performance Saturday night. Just not to Mike Perry.
Perry wasn’t all that impressed with Till’s first-round TKO win over Donald Cerrone in the main event of UFC Gdansk in Poland. Perry, sitting cage side as a guest fighter for the card, confronted Till afterward in an intense verbal back-and-forth.
The UFC Fight Pass broadcast team scored an interview with Perry immediately and he threw some cold water on Till’s outing.
“Yeah, he looked good against Donald — against Donald Cerrone,” Perry told John Gooden and Dan Hardy. “Not against ‘The Cowboy.’ That’s not the ‘Cowboy’ that wins fights. That’s the Donald that shows up. I wasn’t happy with Donald’s performance. I’ve seen him fight a lot better. Darren didn’t get a tough fighter tonight, he got someone who gave up in the first round. You know that’s not what we’re gonna see with me.”
Till and Perry have had some heat with each other on social media and in the press. But Perry fights Santiago Ponzinibbio at UFC on FOX 26 on Dec. 16 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. So any fight between the two surging welterweights will unfortunately have to wait.
“I’m ready to fight right now, man,” Perry said. “I wish I could have got in that cage with him, in that Octagon. But you know, it doesn’t work like that. We gotta be professionals about this, we’ve gotta sign the paperwork and we’re gonna make it happen. I’m pretty sure that it’s gonna go down. I look forward to it, but first I’ve got work to do first with Santiago Ponzinibbio in Winnipeg, Canada.”
Till (16-0-1) continued his undefeated streak Saturday night and looks like a top prospect to reckon with in the UFC. The England native has gone 5-0-1 in his tenure and the win over Cerrone is the most impressive yet. Till, 24, seems like someone the UFC can build around, especially in the European market.
Perry (11-1), meanwhile, is on a two-fight winning streak, both of them Performance of the Night bonus-winning efforts via vicious knockouts. “Platinum” has won four of five fights in the UFC, all by knockout, and has quickly etched his name among the most exciting fighters in the promotion. Perry, 26, owns a vicious KO of Till’s countryman Danny Roberts last year in Manchester. And the Michigan native wants to head back to England to fight Till.
“Rankings don’t matter, they’ve never mattered since I got here,” Perry said. “It’s about how hard I hit you with my right and my left hand. He wants to box, I look forward to any MMA fighter that wants to box with me. Santiago Ponzinibbio is gonna be the first example of that. And then I’m gonna show you Darren Till in England, man. I’m gonna KO this man in his hometown. We know what happened last time I went to Manchester.”