Darren Till Breaks Down Tyron Woodley’s UFC 235 Loss
Darren Till offers his honest take about the latest performance of former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley.
Keep in mind that Woodley gave him his first loss. At the UFC 228 pay-per-view event in Dallas, Texas, last September, Woodley was able to score a second-round submission victory over Till to retain his welterweight title.
Kamura Usman captured the title when he scored a dominant unanimous win over Woodley in the co-headliner of the UFC 235. This show went down on Saturday, March 2, 2019, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Former title contender Till has his next fight lined up as he meets Jorge Masvidal in the headliner of this weekend’s UFC London event.
While speaking with the media, Till made it known that he thinks there was something off with Woodley for his fight against Usman, which impacted his performance in the title fight.
“To me, and this is no disrespect to Usman in no way: I actually sent Usman a message after the fight congratulating him and saying I can’t wait to fight,” Till told MMA Junkie. “I know Usman was chasing me a while back, but now it’s obviously me chasing him. But it just didn’t seem to me like the Woodley team turned up to fight like they did (against) me.”
“I know when he was fighting me, he was scared,” Till said. “When you’re fighting a guy like me, you have to be scared. You know what I bring to the table. And he said that openly. I could feel fear, but that fear drove him on. He was so powerful and quick and aggressive. As much as Usman looked so, so good in there like a top-level fighter, Woodley just didn’t seem like the same Woodley as we’ve seen previously. And he’ll still go down as one of the best ever. He just didn’t seem like the guy we knew. And that’s not to take anything away from Usman. He perfected that strategy. But it was a weird fight.”
UFC on ESPN+ 5 (also known as UFC London) is set to take place on Saturday, March 16, 2019, at The O2 Arena in London, England. The main card will air on ESPN+ at 4 pm ET. The preliminary card will air on ESPN+ at 1 pm ET.
