Over the past weekend it seems as though a new star was born in the UFC, as English welterweight Darren Till downed former lightweight title challenger Donald Cerrone in the first round via knockout.
Cerrone had seen a huge resurgence in his career since making the jump up to 170 pounds, racking up a nice win streak at one point, however, that streak was ended by Jorge Masvidal a few months back. After a nice back-and-forth scrap with former champ Robbie Lawler, which he lost via controversial split decision, Cowboy decided to give young Till a chance in the cage.
Till came into the fight extremely confident and promised to finish Cowboy early - and he did exactly that. From the opening bell Till got immediately back to his feet after getting taken down and dominated the standup game.
Eventually Till poured on too much offense for Cerrone to handle, and the longtime veteran crumbled. Recently Till made an appearance on The MMA Hour to talk about his win. Till claimed that he saw Cerrone to be a broken man before the fight even started (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“Cowboy gave me the opportunity, he didn’t need to give me the opportunity and he did,” Till told Ariel Helwani on the latest episode of The MMA Hour. “It wasn’t the best decision from himself because he didn’t know me before this fight.
“The thing is with me that you might not know me, but when you get into that cage with me and you look across and I’m standing there – you know that it’s real and that my confidence is real.”
“As soon as he stepped into the cage on Saturday, I knew that he was a broken man,” Till said.
“I knew that he was mine. He was mine, he was in my world. My confidence is not fake, it’s 100 percent real and that’s what it is.”
“He just walked into the cage. He wasn’t the Cowboy that I had seen fight Robbie Lawler,” he continued.
“He wasn’t the Cowboy that I had seen fight all these years. He looked at me and he could just see a 24-year-old monster in front of him.
“He was trying to get hyped while he was in the cage. I could see him when I was walking around and I was just standing, looking and smiling with this confidence that I was going to take him out in a few minutes.
“I just knew, mate.”
What are your thoughts on Till calling Cowboy a broken man after he had already knocked out the longtime veteran? Do you think that Till should have picked his words more carefully? Or did he not mean any disrespect by what he said - he was simply describing what he saw? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
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