Many fight fans were surprised to find out that Donald Cerrone scheduled a main event bout with welterweight prospect Darren Till for UFC Fight Night 118 on Oct. 21 live on Fight Pass from inside Ergo Arena in Gdansk, Poland. Cerrone is too high-profile to put his divisional stock on the line against an unknown up-and-comer like Till, especially considering “Cowboy” is coming off a loss to Robbie Lawler back at UFC 214.
What surprised fight fans even more was the fact that Cerrone, who has fought 25 times inside of the Octagon, had absolutely no idea who Till was. Instead, the 34-year-old veteran was just happy to get back into the cage.
“I knew absolutely nothing about Darren Till,” Cerrone said in an interview with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani (shown above). “Never seen his fights. I don’t know where he’s from. I’m not bagging the dude, just f*ck, I don’t know anybody. I said yes before I even had an opponent. That was the UFC’s job to find the opponent.”
“My grandma sent me a thing this morning all mad. ‘He called you a c*nt,’ I said, no grandma, that’s just how they speak over there.”
Till, 24, is coming off a unanimous decision victory over Bojan Velickovic this past weekend at UFC Fight Night 115. He may not be the biggest name in the division, but he’s currently undefeated at 15-0 and sports some pretty wicked standup. So even though Cerrone is game to fight anyone, he may have his hands full in Poland.
“We were trying to book for 10/7, for Vegas,” Cerrone explained. “It just didn’t work. The UFC had to have 13 bouts approved. I was like, what’s up with Poland? They were like, ‘You want to fight in Poland and it’s Fight Pass, you don’t care?’ I was like, why would I care? I don’t give a sh*t.”
A victory over Till doesn’t do much for Cerrone’s welterweight stock besides getting his name back in the win column, but a loss to the surging youngster could very well push “Cowboy” back down to 155 pounds. Cerrone usually goes where the action is, so we’ll see how this unexpected main event plays out.
For more UFC Fight Night 118 fight card news click here.
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