“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
The writers of Rocky knew the score.
If everybody gave up after falling at the first hurdle then the record books would have been denied some of the greatest athletes of all time.
Darren Till was just 25 years old when he fell to the first defeat of his mixed martial arts career. To put that into perspective; Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre and Demetrious Johnson all suffered losses before their 26th birthday.
Till maintains that he will eventually go down as the greatest fighter of all time and who are we to deny that when you consider what the above three names accomplished after losing their undefeated records?
The Scouser will come back stronger following his submission defeat to Tyron Woodley in his first shot at UFC gold because now that he knows that there is no such thing as an unbeatable fighter in the Octagon, Till will prepare for competition with the motivation of how it feels to come up short on the world stage.
MMA is not boxing and a loss is not the end of the world in the UFC.
Till is surrounded by the right people and will not waver from the elite mindset that he had before the UFC 228 headliner last week.
“I just say that you’ve got Scousers, Brazilians, Irish, all races and colours. Wherever they’re from, we all get along and we all get each other,” Till said before he made the walk to the Octagon in the American Airlines Centre in Dallas, Texas.
“We all know what we’re here for. We’re here to work hard, to support each other and to experience something in life so that 20 years down the line, you’ll look back and say ‘Ah I remember that.’
“It’s all well and good with social media and photos but it’s all about what’s in your memory, remembering your experience of life.
“You’ve just got to be a good guy. You’ve got to be a truthful, loyal person and you’ve got to believe in yourself. You’ve got to believe in your team and the people around you and just cut the bullshit.
“That’s what my coach is about. There’s no bullshit! There’s no one in our camp who’s full of shit.”
While Till has hinted at a future at middleweight and even a sojourn at light heavyweight, his nutritionist maintains that 170lbs is still doable.
The future is blindingly bright for ‘The Gorilla’ and we should all feel privileged to be squinting into his inevitable success.
