Darren Till will be casting a keen eye over Mike Perry and Kamaru Usman’s upcoming fights.
The undefeated Liverpool native has been involved in a war of words with many of his fellow welterweights, but his back-and-forth social media interactions with Perry and Usman have garnered the most attention.
Perry still seems to be the man that Till believes will make for the most compelling bout for his next outing, but he is unsure whether “Platinum” can come away with a win from his clash with Santiago Ponzinibbio at UFC on Fox 26 this weekend.
“As I said before, I don’t really care about rankings, and if Perry wins — even if Santiago wins — I think they’re both good matchups for me,” Till told MMAFighting.com.
“If Perry wins, it’s a great showdown for the Liverpool event because I know he’s definitely game to come and fight me in my hometown, and I know he’s going to come in talking some sh*t and I’m going to be talking sh*t.
“I think it would make for an explosive buildup to a fight and I know that for a fact. It’s going to make for a good fight, so I’m pulling for Perry to win this weekend.
“If you asked me who’s going to win, I’d probably say Santiago is going to pull the win off, but I would like Perry to win. People might think I’ve gone past him, but I think that fight is up in the air now. I’ll take any fight.”
It seems as though Usman’s belief that everyone in the welterweight division would prefer not to fight him has also struck a chord with Till. Despite Usman’s 10-fight winning streak, the Team Kaobon standout is confident he could finish Usman in one round.
Usman faces Emil Meek at UFC 220, and Till believes a win for “The Nigerian Nightmare” will keep him at play for his next trip to the Octagon.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Usman thinks that the whole division is scared of him,” said Till.
“He thinks that no one wants to fight him and apparently he’s the hardest guy in the welterweight division, so if Usman thinks he’s the guy to beat me, I’m game for that fight as well.
“I’ll prove him wrong. I’ll knock him out as well. Let’s just hope that he beats Emil Meek and Perry beats Santiago so that will leave those two fights at play for me.”
Till is definitely not short on options at the moment and mentioned Jorge Masvidal as another opponent that would appeal to him.
“Wonderboy’s Dad is scared of me so that’s not going to happen,” Till said. “I’d love to fight Masvidal too, he’s a great competitor. I’m not worthy of a title shot just yet. I know I’m going to be champion, but I haven’t earned that fight.
“There are a lot of options, so it’s going to exciting to see what happens next year and to see what route my career goes down. Everyone wants to fight Darren Till now. There must be something in the air because everyone is calling me out now.”
As for the main event of UFC on FOX 26, Till doesn’t think matchups with either Rafael dos Anjos or Robbie Lawler make sense.
“Dos Anjos is too small,” Till said. “He’s just too small. How the f*ck could he fight me? He’s too small. He’ll be going back down to lightweight soon. I’d f*ckin’ knock him straight out in one round. I would f*ckin’ burst his face open.”
The towering welterweight believes Lawler would meet a similar demise if they faced off.
“I’d do the same to him,” Till said of Lawler. “I’d burst him. He’s too stupid to fight someone like me. We know he can’t take punches, so he definitely doesn’t want to be taking left hands off me. I’ll end his career.”
Although Till is confident that an event in Liverpool will be organized at some point next year, he has yet to hear anything about it.
“I haven’t hard anything just yet, but I reckon next year it will happen. There will be some big news soon hopefully.”
Till also suggested that the event would likely take place later than the Feb. 24 date that was initially reported.
“It could be further, we don’t know,” he said, laughing.