Darren Till is making the long-overdue move up to middleweight, and he’ll be greeted by recent title challenger Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 244.
ESPN’s Brett Okamoto reported the addition of Darren Till vs. Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 244.
In eight fights in the UFC, Darren Till has missed weight twice and has notably struggled to make the 170-pound limit and has even bragged about being a light heavyweight fighting at welterweight. Now he’ll be 10 pounds closer to 205 pounds, which could help get him back on track after two consecutive losses. However, it will be very difficult to do so, given that he’ll be fighting the very talented Kelvin Gastelum.
Kelvin Gastelum also used to fight at welterweight, going 5-2 and missing weight twice. The final straw came at UFC 205, when Gastelum couldn’t weigh-in for a fight against Donald Cerrone. Since then, he’s been at middleweight, going 4-2 with his last appearance being a fight of the year candidate in an interim title bout against Israel Adesanya.
Darren Till had a very quick rise to the top, going 5-0-1 with big wins over Donald Cerrone and Stephen Thompson from 2015 to 2018. He then received a title shot against Tyron Woodley, and was defeated soundly. The Liverpool native returned to the cage in March, getting knocked out in the second round against Jorge Masvidal in a fight of the night. He had a bit of a personal issue in April, trashing a hotel room and stealing a taxi cab for which he was fined £10,000.
UFC 244 takes place on November 2 from Madison Square Garden in New York City. It doesn’t have an official main event yet, but it does reportedly have a title fight between welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington. Derrick Lewis is also set to fight Blagoy Ivanov and Johnny Walker will get a step up against Corey Anderson.
