Till darren

Darren Till was born on December 24, 1992 in Liverpool , England . At the age of twelve, he began to seriously engage in Thai boxing , from the age of fifteen he performed at major competitions. At seventeen he joined the local fighting team Team Kaobon, where he was already training as a MMA fighter. Held several amateur fights, all won ^{[1] [2]} .

In August 2012, an incident occurred in which Till got into a fight with several people at a party and received two stab wounds in the back. He was on the verge of life and death, because one of the wounds was very deep, the knife was literally a millimeter from the vital artery. After this incident, the coach advised him to go to train in Brazil, since life in Liverpool was fraught with such destructive things for him. Thus, Till became a member of the Brazilian fighting team Astra Fight Team from the state of Santa Catarina . Initially, he planned to stay here for about six months, but ultimately stayed in Brazil for three and a half years ^[3] .

Start of a professional career

It was in Brazil in February 2013 that Darren Till made his debut in mixed martial arts at a professional level. He fought often enough, so, in 2013 alone, he had eight fights and won all of them, while knocking out seven opponents. Initially he performed in the middle weight class, but in 2014 he decided to go down to the light-middleweight.

Ultimate Fighting Championship

With twelve victories in his record without a single defeat, Till attracted the attention of the world's largest fighting organization Ultimate Fighting Championship and made his debut safely in May 2015 - he came out on a short notice against Brazilian Wendel de Oliveira (he found out about the fight only nine days before his start) and knocked him out in the second round ^[4] .

In October 2015, he went to Octagon against Dane Nicholas Dalby - the confrontation between them lasted the entire allotted time, as a result of which, by a decision of the majority of judges, a draw was recorded. Both fighters received awards for the best fight of the evening ^[5] .

Due to a shoulder injury and various personal circumstances, Till did not fight for a long time with anyone. Finally, in May 2017, he fought with the little-known German of Tunisian origin Jessin Ayari. The English fighter did not meet the welterweight limit, showing an excess of about five pounds, and was forced to give 20% of his fee in favor of the opponent. He explained the failure of the weigh-in with the fact that there had been no fighting in his life for a long time, and the body did not respond to cracking as it had been before. For all that, he confidently surpassed Ayari on points and won by unanimous decision ^[6] .

In August 2017, Till signed a new contract with the UFC, designed for five fights ^[7] , after which he prevailed over such famous fighters as Boyan Velichkovich and Donald Cerrone - in the second case received a bonus for the best performance of the evening ^{[8] [9]} .

In May 2018, at the main event in Liverpool, in the main event of the evening, Darren Thill met with the first number of the UFC welterweight ranking by American Stephen Thompson . He again failed to meet the weight, exceeding the limit by three and a half pounds - after negotiations with the Thompson team, it was decided to fight at an intermediate weight, while on the day of the fight Till should not weigh more than 85.3 kg, moreover, 30% of his fee transferred to the Americans ^[10] . Till coped with the established requirement, although the raceman was very hard for him. As a result, the battle lasted all five rounds, and the judges unanimously gave the victory to Till ^[11] . The decision turned out to be very controversial, so, according to the statistics of MMADecisions.com, 22 out of 25 experts declared Thompson to be the winner in this battle ^[12] . Anyway, the victory over Steven Thompson allowed Till to rise to the second line of the UFC welterweight ranking.

Till eventually won the right to challenge the UFC welterweight title, owned by American Tyrone Woodley . The championship match between them took place in September 2018; in the second round, Woodley forced the Englishman to surrender with the help of the suffocating technique of d'Arcy, thereby inflicting his first defeat in his professional career.

During his stay in Brazil in 2013–2016, Till learned the Portuguese language well enough - he can speak it as he does in his native English ^[1] .

In Brazil, he left a daughter, born of a local Brazilian woman - the face of this woman tattooed on his left hand ^[13] .

• Darren Till (English) - statistics of professional fights on the site Sherdog