Darren Till says he was offered a fight with Woodley, but Woodley turned it down

Earlier this week, the welterweight division was thrust into chaos. Reports surfaced that the UFC was contemplating a title fight between champion Tyron Woodley and undefeated contender Darren Till, and simultaneously stripping Colby Covington of the UFC interim welterweight title. The cause of all this, it was said, was Covington’s inability to fight Woodley at UFC 228 in September. 

Well, from the sounds of it, things have gotten even more complicated since then.

Speaking to Peter Carroll of MMA Fighting, Till claimed that he has been offered a fight with Woodley, but that Woodley turned the opportunity down.

“I don’t know what’s happening with Colby, whether he’s injured or not, but I’ve been offered Tyron Woodley and he turned the fight down,” said Till.

“That’s what it looks like to me and I’ve been on the UFC’s case about it. UFC want me to fight him, but he will not accept it. [UFC] didn’t mention a date or anything, but that’s the fight they wanted to make and he obviously isn’t into it.”

While Darren Till claims he’s not too stressed about Woodley turning him down, he says he’s starting to wonder what it will take to get Woodley to defend his title.

“I’m not too bothered about it, but I get a feeling that he thinks that nobody is worthy of fighting him for the title,” Till said. “I think he just wants to hold onto the belt for as long as he can. He’s going to have to make a decision soon. If he doesn’t want to fight me, who does he want to fight? It’s just me and Colby and Colby is injured apparently, so who is there? It’s a weird one, but I’m just waiting to see what happens.”

“Maybe he wants to hold on for the Colby fight or maybe he just doesn’t want to come back — maybe he just doesn’t want to fight me. There could be many reasons but I think we’re going to find out what’s going to happen in the next few days. I’m not thinking too much into it at the moment because I want to have more information. I just want to see what it’s going to be, whether it’s me fighting Woodley or if he’s going to wait to fight Colby.

“He’s not getting the Georges St-Pierre fight, he’s not getting Nate Diaz, so who is he going to fight?”

Whatever the case, Till isn’t prepared to wait around for too long for Woodley.

“I’m not going to wait around for it,” he said. “I’ll just beat someone else and see what happens. I really feel he wants to just keep a hold of that title.”

Do you think it will be Darren Till, Colby Covington or somebody else who gets the next crack at Tyron Woodley and the UFC welterweight title?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/20/2018.