Darren Till Reveals the Reason for His Middleweight Debut and Talks about His Training for Kelvin Gastelum

Darren Till is going to fight Kelvin Gastelum in the co-main event of UFC 244 in MSG. This fight will mark Till’s debut in the middleweight division. Now it was about time for Darren Till to move up to middleweight since he was having some serious problems with making weight for the welterweight division. However, two consecutive losses against Tyron Woodley and Jorge Masvidal has made Till finally set his foot in the middleweight division.

While Till’s moving up a weight class made sense, many fans were shocked by his decision to fight the former title contender, Kelvin Gastelum. Many believe Gastelum will be a handful for Till in his first bout at middleweight. However, Till revealed his reasons for accepting the fight with Gastelum and said:

“I did not even know what I was gonna do( after the loss to Jorge Masvidal). I was in two minds. Then Kelvin sort of called me out on twitter. And I was like it’s sort of that saying”Go Big or Go Home”. In my eyes, this is a chance to fight one of the best in the division. He is a Mexican dog. So tough and durable”.

Related: Darren Till reflects on his loss to Jorge Masvidal

Darren Till has been looking muscular in his recent training pictures and it seems he is doing things the right way before his middleweight debut and Till seems to be very happy about the progress so far. Till said:
” I have not gone with the mindset like okay you move up to middleweight now you can do whatever the f**k you want. That’s what my coach Colin was worried about, me going to middleweight and sort of just disregarding the diet. In fact, it has been easier now that I am a middleweight because it’s not like I have to have a big choice about what to eat and what to do.”

Though Darren Till will be giving up his size advantage when he moves up to middleweight, he looked confident with the fight with Gastelum ahead when he said:

“I have been more disciplined now that I am middleweight. I don’t want to have the mentality now I have to blow up as big as all these guys. I don’t mind being a smaller guy, maybe it will work in my advantage. We will see what happens in 5 weeks with kelvin Gastelum.”

“I?I wanna be fast and I want to be lean and I want to be strong.” said Till when ahead of his middleweight debut.

Darren Till will be returning to the octagon after his devastating loss to Jorge Masvidal back in March 2019. It would be interesting to see how Till performs in the middleweight against tough competition such as Kelvin Gastelum.