After suffering his first career loss in his first career UFC title fight, Darren Till is changing weight divisions.
Till, who suffered a submission loss to Tyron Woodley for the welterweight title earlier this year, announced plans to move to middleweight for his next fight.
The Liverpool native is 17-1-1 with wins over Stephen Thompson and Donald Cerrone to his credit.
Here’s what Till had to say on the Paddy Power blog:
“I’m a big dude for welterweight to be honest, so that’s probably going to be my last fight at that weight.
“Welterweight isn’t fully gone for me, but I’m going to be happy going up to middleweight now and I’ll be strong at that weight not having to cut as much weight.
“I’m at the pinnacle of my fighting career now, I’m one of the biggest names in MMA right now.
“I’m fighting the best and I am one of the best.
“I’ll have a few fights at middleweight and you never know, down the line if Woodley is still about then I can have another go at him, that’s a rematch I want.
“It’s not that I can’t make the weight. I’m just a big lad so I just have to be on such a strict, regimented diet and being honest, I don’t like doing it.
“People might say ‘he’s not disciplined enough’, but because I have to cut so much weight I can only eat the bare minimum of food and that’s not how I want to be training.
“I want to be eating nice, healthy, big meals and training hard, smashing my training.
“The move up will help me keep my head more relaxed over the weight cut and I’ll be training more with a smile on my face, so I’m looking forward to going to middleweight.
“However, I’ll be faster than those guys and we’ll see how it plays out.”
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