What’s next for middleweights Darren Till and Robert Whittaker?

After their incredibly close, hard fought battle at UFC Fight Island III, what’s next for Darren ‘The Gorilla’ Till and Robert ‘The Reaper’ Whittaker? Of course, as we know, Whittaker walked away with the unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 48-47) victory, and Till will be in a cast for six weeks due to a tear in his MCL, an injury he suffered in round two of their epic battle. This was one of the most technical striking battles we’ll ever see in mixed martial arts, they’re both about as skilled as you get in that department, and neither are even 30-years-old yet, they’ll both continue improving over the next few years.

Despite ‘The Gorilla’ Darren Till being in a cast until mid-September, there have already been sources tying him to a clash with Anderson Silva, though it is not yet confirmed. TalkMMA stated that the bout is in early discussions, and we should expect to hear it announced over the next several days. We’ll see how that plays out, they are scheduling past September now, so it could happen.

It’s a great fight, but for Silva’s last two fights, he shouldn’t be fighting top five talents, we’ve seen how that plays out over the last seven years. However, for someone like Till, who started his career out with a 17-0-1 record and is now 18-3-1, it’s a good fight. It should put Till back in the win column, and it’ll be a good striking battle between a legend of the sport and one of the premier young strikers in the sport.

As far as ‘The Reaper’ goes, Dana White said he’d like to see him fight Jared Cannonier for the No. 1 contender spot, with the winner facing the Adesanya versus Costa winner for the UFC Middleweight Championship. This really is an incredible fight, an incredible fight we almost got to see earlier this year in March at UFC 248, but Whittaker pulled out in order to donate bone marrow to his sick daughter. He later revealed that he was also burnt out, and that break was exactly what he needed.

It’s too bad that fight didn’t happen, but it may be a good thing. Whittaker wouldn’t have showed up at his best, and it looks like we may get to see it happen now. Cannonier has really come into his own lately, he’ll be a very interesting match up for the former champion. Cannonier was knocking opponents out at heavyweight, where he went 7-0 before joining the UFC. He went 1-1 at heavyweight in the UFC, then went 2-3 after dropping to light-heavyweight. Now he’s 3-0 at middleweight with three knockouts, and we’ve all been left wanting more since his last fight almost a year ago at this point.

What would you like to see be next for these two middleweight titans, Darren Till and Robert Whittaker?

Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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