News recently surfaced that the UFC may book welterweight champion Tyron Woodley against Darren Till for UFC 228, while also stripping Colby Covington of the UFC Interim Welterweight Title.
Till is apparently ready to challenge the UFC Welterweight Champion, but the one problem according to Till is that Woodley has yet to accept the bout.
“I don’t know what’s happening with Colby, whether he’s injured or not, but I’ve been offered Tyron Woodley and he turned the fight down,” said Till to MMA Fighting. “That’s what it looks like to me and I’ve been on the UFC’s case about it. UFC want me to fight him, but he will not accept it. [UFC] didn’t mention a date or anything, but that’s the fight they wanted to make and he obviously isn’t into it.”
If Covington is unavailable to fight Woodley, a #2 ranked Till would be the next logical challenger for the champion.
While no decision has been made yet about the welterweight champion’s next title defense, one thing Till expects is for the situation to be cleared soon.
“I’m not too bothered about it, but I get a feeling that he thinks that nobody is worthy of fighting him for the title. I think he just wants to hold onto the belt for as long as he can. He’s going to have to make a decision soon. If he doesn’t want to fight me, who does he want to fight? It’s just me and Colby and Colby is injured apparently, so who is there? It’s a weird one, but I’m just waiting to see what happens,” he said. “Maybe he wants to hold on for the Colby fight or maybe he just doesn’t want to come back — maybe he just doesn’t want to fight me. There could be many reasons but I think we’re going to find out what’s going to happen in the next few days. I’m not thinking too much into it at the moment because I want to have more information. I just want to see what it’s going to be, whether it’s me fighting Woodley or if he’s going to wait to fight Colby. He’s not getting the Georges St-Pierre fight, he’s not getting Nate Diaz, so who is he going to fight?”
UFC 228 takes place on Saturday, September 8 from the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas with no main event announced at this time. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
