UFC middleweight Darren Till refused to pull out of UFC 282 despite a brutal eye poke sustained in camp. Till revealed the horrific injury on Instagram, and discussed how it went down at the pre-fight media day.
“I was wrestling on the mat, and I shot for a takedown — I don’t know why I’m doing that — it was like the worst thing to ever happen to me.
Darren Till Suffered Brutal Eye Poke: “I Felt It Go To The Back of My Brain”
The guy’s middle finger, I felt it go to the back of my brain. I actually tried to carry on wrestling. Anatoly [Malykhin] — he just won in ONE Championship there — he was like, ‘Sit down. Sit your ass down.’
It actually got worse as the days went on, and then I was actually worried, ‘I can’t pull out of another fight.’ But then it got better and it’s fine. It was one of the worst eye pokes I’ve ever had in my life, probably anyone will have ever seen. It was really bad when it happened. But it’s part of camp, isn’t it?”
Till has had a rough time of late, only fighting twice from 2020 through to 2021. Injuries forced Till out of bouts against Marvin Vettori and Jack Hermansson, and Till knew that sharing another pre-fight injury could jeopardize his chances of returning to the Octagon.
“I was in the ice bath and stuff like that, and that eye picture was on my phone because I sent it and I was like, ‘Post that.’ My partner Christian was like, ‘Chael [Sonnen] said you’re posting that to pull out of the fight.’ I was like, ‘What the f*** does that conspiracy theorist know?’ So I don’t know.”
I don’t talk much about the injury, everyone knows I was injured. I couldn’t really do much for the fight, I just didn’t want to pull out of the fight, that was the thing it was back then. Now, I know I’ve got a little bit of a name and people always say I pull out, but I took that fight. I was absolutely f*****. I’m not taking anything away from Derek, he beat me fair and square, but I was only able to prepare for that fight in one way and that was just a little bit of boxing pads and a little bit of the bike.
I’ve had a good camp this camp, I’ve trained really hard, I’ve had good partners. I think if you look at me, you’re going to look at me on the scale whenever the [weigh-ins are], I’m going to be looking like what I used to look like.”
Can Darren Till return to winning ways despite the injury? Let us know in the comments.
