Darren Till has been out of competition for over a year. But the time away from the octagon has been spent training alongside Khamzat Chimaev at All-Stars and Brendan Loughnane at Tiger Muay Thai.
Although his striking game is efficient, the Scouser’s grappling leaves a lot to be desired, with the middleweight receiving criticism for his performance last time out.
Despite causing him trouble on the feet, the Brit was submitted midway through the third round of his most recent clash against Derek Brunson.
During an interview with Daniel Cormier, Chris Weidman, and Laura Sanko, Darren Till described why Tiger Muay Thai is a great place for him to improve and train with Khamzat Chimaev back in Sweden:
“I was watching Brendan Loughnane training out there [in Thailand] and he was training with lots of people. Arman Tsarukyan and all these guys, and I was like, ‘These are the guys who I need to be surrounding myself with.’ So I just went out there for 12 weeks and I swear, [it’s] one of the best places I’ve ever trained. Every week at Tiger Muay Thai, there’s a fresh plane of 20 Russians looking to absolutely maul you… I just wanted a change, this year I’ve trained a lot with Khamzat as well at AllStars, so that was great doing the fight camps with them as well.” (1:50 mark)
Khamzat Chimaev and Darren Till formed an unlikely bond following the Englishman’s aforementioned loss to Derek Brunson last year. Since then, the middleweight pairing has had each other’s backs and quickly became one of MMA’s greatest-ever duos.
Check out what the heavy-hitting athlete had to say about his training camp ahead of UFC 282 this weekend in the video below.
When is Khamzat Chimaev fighting next?
Khamzat Chimaev has been a menace since joining the UFC. He has taken both the welterweight and middleweight divisions by storm with his dominant nature inside the cage.
Despite missing weight by a large margin in his last bout, ‘Borz’ was gifted another chance to make the 170lb limit. However, there are a number of matchups the Swede would be interested in taking next elsewhere.
Alongside Colby Covington, Kamaru Usman, and Leon Edwards, Chimaev has put his sights firmly on the newly crowned middleweight champion of the world in Alex Pereira. Another possibility is Paulo Costa, a man who has made it publicly known that he wants to step into the cage against the European.