UFC star Darren Till will reportedly return to the Octagon for the first time in almost a year to face Jack Hermansson this summer.

While he may not be the most successful British fighter in UFC history, Darren Till is certainly one of the most popular. From his social media persona to his fighting style, the Liverpudlian goes in there to put on a show every single time he pulls on the gloves.

Unfortunately, across his last five fights, that’s only led to him getting his hand raised once.

The man who was tipped to be the next big thing at welterweight, and then at middleweight, continues to stumble - with the most recent example of that being his September 2021 defeat at the hands of Derek Brunson.

Now, it appears as if we’re going to see him make another run at the gold at 185 pounds.

As per a recent report from MMANytt, ‘The Gorilla’ will jump back into the cage on July 23 to fight Jack Hermansson.

The card is currently expected to go down in London, following on from a successful return to the English capital in March. On that night, Till was in the corner of Tom Aspinall as the heavyweight sensation finished Alexander Volkov to move one step closer to a title shot.

Till has previously been booked to take on ‘The Joker’ as recently as December 2020, but an injury ruled him out of the bout.

The Chimaev equation

The big difference for Darren Till heading into this fight is going to be the presence of Khamzat Chimaev.

The man known as ‘Borz’ is 5-0 in the UFC and is quite easily the hottest prospect in all of mixed martial arts. In the last couple of months, Till has been training with Chimaev over in Sweden in an attempt to rejuvenate his championship push.

It’s going to take some time before we can really analyse where he’s at but putting him against Hermansson, someone who Khamzat knows quite well, is going to test the 29-year-old and show the world whether or not he truly is destined to be a champion one day.