Darren Till doesn’t want to make any excuses but he can’t be accused of giving up in his attempts to make weight for UFC Liverpool.
Till came in at 174.5lbs for his main event clash with Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson last weekend, plunging the headline fight into jeopardy before Thompson accepted the bout on the conditions that Till would forfeit 30 per cent of his purse and weigh no more than 188lbs eight hours before the opening bell.
Till agreed to those stipulations and the fight went ahead, with the Scouser claiming a razor-close decision over ‘Wonderboy’ at the Echo Arena on Sunday night.
‘The Gorilla’ has since soared to second place in the welterweight rankings but plenty of controversy surrounds that boost as he technically didn’t compete at welterweight last weekend.
New footage, captured by Paddy Power, shows exactly how the weight cut went down as an emergency phonecall forced a halt to proceedings before Till tried one last sleepless attempt to sweat out the remaining pounds on the morning of the weigh-ins.
“The thing is that I’m not one to make excuses. I missed weight,” Till said after his win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHEKObMK0bo
“I can’t do anything about it. The night I was cutting weight, I had some problems I had to attend to, whilst cutting weight so I attended to them.
“But, listen, there are no fucking excuses for missing weight. I missed weight and it is what it is.”
Till refused to give himself full credit for getting past the recent two-time 170lbs title challenger because of the fact that he missed weight.
And while the undefeated Liverpool fighter is embarrassed about failing to hit the mark, he has vowed to take more control of his weight for future outings.
“It was a challenge,” Till said. “I’ve got the type of body that, as soon as I missed weight and I started hydrating again, my weight just shot right back up.
“I think I went up to 88 kilos (194lbs) and I had to weigh in at 85.2 kilos (188lbs). That was the night before when I was going to bed.
Imagine! https://t.co/CJKtk4rjwX
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) May 28, 2018
“Last night I had to starve myself and not drink anything. Then this morning, I went and trained. I went to the gym and did 45 minutes of hard training. This is how much I wanted the fight.
“I’ll say it again and I’m not going to stop saying it but there’s no excuse for missing weight. I’m truly ashamed by it. I don’t like it.
“I feel like my win could be a bit more right now if I’d made weight. I’m taking a bit off. Win, lose or draw, I’m still taking a bit off because I’m ashamed by it. I am a professional man.
“As I’ve said, I’m a big guy for the weight class and I’ve got to get it more under control.”
