5 reasons why Darren Till might never become a champion

#4. Darren Till is a low-volume striker

In the welterweight division, Darren Till was a different fighter altogether. He retained his absurd speed advantage over all his opponents while simultaneously being large enough to land with devastating punching power. As a low-volume striker, these two traits maximized his ability to knock out fighters without requiring him to increase the volume of strikes that he throws.

However, as a middleweight, Till is in no man's land. His speed remains an advantage due to his ascension from a smaller weight class. Unfortunately, he's unable to consistently hurt his opponents due to the discrepancy in thickness and width between him and his middleweight opponents. The only middleweights he's managed to stun are Robert Whittaker and Derek Brunson, who are both exceptionally vulnerable.

Whittaker is a former welterweight who doesn't possess the best chin. Furthermore, he historically struggles against opponents who stand on the outside and don't allow him to stutter-step into crisp boxing combinations, causing him to lunge forward. It's what lost him the bouts against Israel Adesanya and Stephen Thompson, and what led to his struggles against a decidedly lesser striker in Darren Till.

Brunson, by contrast, doesn't possess the greatest chin either, least of all because he often charges recklessly into exchanges, tilting his head far back until his chin is hyper-exposed to counters. Even then, Till failed to hurt them consistently due to his habit of throwing strikes at a low volume.

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#3. His clinch work and defensive grappling aren't very effective

Due to his base as a Muay Thai fighter, Darren Till is a competent user of the clinch. He possesses a decent arsenal of elbows off the break, but most of his clinch work is done in an effort to neutralize his opponent's offense by smothering their punches. Till's clinch work relies on his height and reach to enable him to generate the kind of leverage to truly bully his foes.

At middleweight, he's not large enough to do this against anyone other than Kelvin Gastelum, against whom Till still struggled. His other opponents were either too strong or long to allow him to close the distance to smother their punches. If he has serious championship aspirations, he will find it incredibly difficult to get within range of the taller end of middleweights who hover around the championship belt like Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira.

At welterweight, his prospects are even worse as the clinch is an open invitation for Till to be outwrestled due to the influx of skilled wrestlers at 170 lbs. Darren Till's anti-wrestling is fairly antiquated. He immediately digs for underhooks to control his opponent's posture while he explodes his hips back. This only works to stop a takedown, but 'The Gorilla' does not disengage from grappling sequences. This is what led to him being outwrestled by Derek Brunson.

While middleweight is devoid of many elite wrestlers, welterweight is teeming with them, as fighters like Colby Covington, Kamaru Usman, Khamzat Chimaev, Sean Brady, Shavkat Rakhmonov and Belal Muhammad would make him pay with much higher-level wrestling as Till has only ever had to fend off takedowns from Tyron Woodley and Kelvin Gastelum, neither of whom have wrestled consistently in the cage in years nor possess any chain wrestling.