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Darren Till faced Robert Whittaker in UFC Fight Island 3 in what turned out to be a great main event. It was a technical striking match-up, one that Robert Whittaker described as a "chess match" and among the toughest of his career.
Despite having a bad first round, the former UFC Middleweight Champion managed to make a good comeback against Darren Till, winning the next three rounds and securing a unanimous decision victory.
Darren Till isn't down in the dumps about it and spoke about Israel Adesanya in the post-fight press conference. Darren Till remains confident that he can defeat the reigning UFC Middleweight Champion.
Darren Till explained why he matches up better with Adesanya than Robert Whittaker (H/T BJPENN.com):
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“I’m going to have to layoff direct messaging him for a while. All I do is scream in the videos to him and the Instagram messages. But, I’ve got a lot of respect for this lad. I think he’s a great fighter. You know what, this is no disrespect to him, but I think he’s probably an easier fight for me than Rob because we both.. we’d probably have a great striking battle.
Rob’s a bit different because he mixes it up. Israel is a great MMA fighter but he’s a pure striker. I think we’d have a great fight. Rob mixed it up a little bit and he’s wild. He’s wilder than me. He will lunge with his head and time off it. He caught me with some cracking shots and I was just eating them for breakfast.”
Will Darren Till get a crack at Israel Adesanya?
Despite Darren Till losing, Israel Adesanya stated that he still wants to fight him. It'll take a few wins for Darren Till to get a title shot, particularly since he's now 1-1 in Middleweight and 1-3 in his last four fights.
Either way, this was a much closer fight than his other two losses and he certainly didn't look bad in defeat. Many felt that it was 2-2 going into the final round, but Whittaker did enough to secure the win over Darren Till.
It's going to be interesting to see what the next step for Darren Till is. Jack Hermansson is a logical choice after his win over Kelvin Gastelum.
