Competing in sports is bad for your body. The yearly injury rate for something as basic as running is as high as 70% by some estimates. Even F***ing Tennis is bad for your elbow. Sports where you get hit in the face can be bad for your brain. And in MMA, no loves it more than when two fighters are valiantly smashing each other in the face.
Robert Whittaker was hit 263 times by Yoel Romero across their two fights. Each fight earned him a $50,000 performance bonus. But being hit 263 times by “Soldier of God” is not good for you. In his next fight, Whittaker fell after being hit 40 times by Israel Adesanya.
Darren Till fights Whittaker in the main event of Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 14, and while Till isn’t counting on Bobby Knuckles being chinny, he’s not planning a bonus-assuring slugfest. At the UFC on ESPN 14 media day, Till told Damon Martin for MMA Fighting why.
One big thing I’ve always known throughout my career, the wars take the toll on you, and whoever you are, you can see them taking the toll, explained Till. No disrespect, but when you look at guys like Justin Gaethje, and I look at Max Holloway now, and sometimes I seen glimpses of them slurring a little bit, ’cause of the wars they’ve been in. All respect to the wars, but it ain’t a smart choice when you’re fighting.
You want to sort of look in the direction of someone like Floyd Mayweather. Someone like that. He’s 40-plus, whatever he is now, and he’s got all his brain cells because he hardly got hit. So I think them wars, they take the toll on you, and they do take the toll on your chin. I think anyone I touch anyway at middleweight, I found myself I’m going to hurt with that left hand but we’ll see.
As Mike Tyson famously explained, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Till made a mistake and got punched in the mouth vs. Jorge Masvidal, and that was that. The loss spurred Till’s move up to middleweight, where mistakes are even more costly still. Till says he has a sound game plan for Whittaker.
Always stick to the game plan, he said. If only I had done it against Masvidal, I would probably be on the cover of EA Sports right now.
You can’t fight every fight [with] perfection, and it’s not like that. The fight game is certainly not like that, especially in MMA. That’s why it doesn’t matter who you’re fighting, they could have a big belly, you can never underestimate or overlook any fighter. I sort of overlooked Masvidal a bit because he was a bit tinier. I beat Stephen Thompson, and Stephen Thompson beat him comfortably. Maybe I did [underestimate Masvidal]. Maybe on my part I did, but you live and you learn.
So how will Saturday’s main event end?
Me knocking him out hopefully, replied Till. I don’t ever imagine him knocking me out. That’s it. I imagine myself knocking him out hopefully.
