Coach: UFC Offered Gunnar Nelson-Darren Till Bout as Headliner for London Card on March 17

A headliner for UFC Fight Night 127 appears to be in the works, but it doesn’t involve Michael Bisping.

According to John Kavanagh, the promotion is targeting a welterweight clash between Gunnar Nelson and Darren Till for the March 17 event in London. Nelson trains under Kavanagh at SBG Ireland.

So [UFC] have offered [Nelson vs. Till] main event [at UFC London],” Kavanagh wrote on Twitter. “We’ve agreed so hoping to hear confirmation soon. How do you guys like the matchup? I’m reminded of the Thatch fight, big strong striker but I think Till is tougher challenge. One way to find out…”

So @ufc have offered @GunniNelson v @darrentill2 main event #UFCLondon we've agreed so hoping to hear confirmation soon how do you guys like the match up? I'm reminded of the Thatch fight, big strong striker but I think Till is tougher challenge. One way to find out... pic.twitter.com/b7U81FpzBf

— Coach Kavanagh (@John_Kavanagh) January 24, 2018

Kavanagh also posted a screen shot of a social media interaction between the two fighters in November, when both agreed to a potential bout.

Nelson last appeared at UFC Fight Night 118, where he suffered a first-round knockout loss to Santiago Ponzinibbio on July 16. The 30-year-old Iceland native owns a 7-3 mark in the promotion, with six of those triumphs coming via submission.

Till, meanwhile, is coming off a signature triumph, as he stopped Donald Cerrone in the opening round at UFC Fight Night 118 on Oct. 21. The 25-year-old Liverpool native is unbeaten in 17 professional outings, with a draw against Nicolas Dalby the only blemish on his ledger.

Bisping had targeted the London card for his retirement fight, but the former middleweight champion recently said on his ”Believe You Me” podcast that his family and friends have urged him to call it a career now instead. “The Count” claimed that he had been offered a fight on Tuesday and that he had until the end of the day to accept it.

“I’m just debating whether or not I take the fight,” he said. “For me, whether or not those people can see, I have a bad eye. I have a bad eye and my wife doesn’t want me to continue fighting, and my manager doesn’t want me to continue fighting. I see out of that eye but not as well as I used to, and I’m still a young man so it’s kind of the reason I may hang the gloves up. My wife and manager and friends and people close to me say, ‘Mike, what do you want to do that for? You’ve done it. You’ve had the belt.’ I’ve done it. I’ve done what I set out to achieve.

“I kind of want to go do one last fight in England and they’re like, ‘So what? Five years from now or a year from now, people are gonna forget about all that and you can injure yourself even more.’ but you can injure yourself in any fight, whether or not you’re at 100% health or not. So that’s what we’re up to and I don’t know.”