And yet, following a contentious decision win over Thompson in the UFC Fight Night 130 headliner in his hometown, he doesn’t believe a welterweight title shot should be on the horizon.
“I couldn’t care less,” Till said at the post-fight press conference. “I think Stephen deserves the interim [belt] more than I do myself. I just beat him in a close fight. Give it to Stephen. He made weight and he’s beaten more contenders. I’m not gonna sit here and bullsh--t anyone.”
Till, of course, missed weight by 3.5 pounds on Saturday. In order to be cleared to compete on Sunday, he had to check in below 188 pounds. Till did so, weighing in at 187.3 pounds to make the fight official. At the time, Till’s miss was attributed to a family emergency. He declined to elaborate beyond that after the fight.
“I missed weight. I can’t talk about it. The night I had to cut weight I had some problems to attend to, so I attended to them,” Till said. “But listen, there’s no f--king excuse for missing weight. I missed weight. It’s three pounds. Stephen was going to take the fight no matter what.”
While Till was repentant for missing weight, he wasn’t nearly as concerned with the controversial scorecards submitted in Liverpool.
“It’s a close fight. People are gonna say that he won, people are gonna say that I won. I couldn’t care less,” Till said. “I got the decision. It was a very, very close fight. It was the most trickiest fight I’ve ever fought. I think he was shocked because I’m an aggressive fighter, and I knew against him I had to be very different and use all my smarts. It was a hard, hard fight. Very close.”
As for what’s next, Till plans on facing all the top contenders at 170 pounds. But he reiterated that he doesn’t expect a crack at welterweight gold in the near future.
“I missed weight, so I don’t think I deserve a title shot,” he said. “I still feel like Stephen probably deserves it. I still want to beat them all in the division and I want to come back and put that weight thing behind me.”