EXCLUSIVE | Stephen Thompson “It felt good that a lot of people scored the fight in my favor”

Former two-time UFC welterweight title challenger Stephen Thompson suffered a unanimous decision loss to Darren Till last month in Liverpool, England.

The scorecards for the fight were marred in controversy after two of the judges in attendance scored the fight 49-46 for the hometown favorite Darren Till, this while the majority of the mixed martial arts community appeared to have scored the bout 48-47 in favor of Thompson.

During a recent interview with BJPENN.com’s Chris Taylor, “Wonderboy” touched on the fact that a lot of individuals had scored the UFC Liverpool main event in his favor. While Thompson admitted that it “felt good” to know that a lot of people had him winning on points, in the end he still came home empty handed.

“You know it felt good that a lot of people scored the fight in my favor, but I am a fighter and in the end I didn’t get the win. In my eyes, you know, I could sit there and say ‘Oh yay everyone thought I won’, but really whoopdeedoo. I didn’t get the decision. I didn’t get the win. You know everyone says not to leave it in the hands of the judges and I did. So despite everything that happened, there’s no excuses. But yeah, at first it felt pretty cool to know that everyone thought I won the fight, it was kind of like the second Woodley fight. But eventually that wears off and you realize that despite opinions I didn’t get the W and now I have to go back and make sure that I train harder and take the judges out of the equation in my next fight.”

Thompson is hoping that his next octagon appearance will come against one of two former UFC champions in Robbie Lawler or Rafael dos Anjos.

“So I was thinking, with me being out for a while with this knee injury, the number two guy who is Darren Till now is probably going to want to fight before I am able to return. I think a lot of the top guys are going to want to fight before then. The only one that I could really think of, and he is a fighter I’ve been wanting to fight for a while now, who also recently had knee surgery is Robbie Lawler. I was just thinking, that this would be a really exciting fight, which is obviously something I want after my past two performances. Lawler was one of my idols growing up. I watched him all the time, this was before I was in the UFC. I believe he’s ranked #5 right now and I’ve been talking with Dana (White) and so I’m hopeful that we can line that up. Dana told me that I could have any fight I wanted after Till, but obviously I can’t call for the winner of Colby Covington and RDA, or a trilogy with Woodley. He’s not going to go for that. But a fight with Robbie? That makes sense and would be a great fight for the fans.”

Wonderboy continued:

“Yeah man, and you know one of the reasons I said Robbie Lawler at first was because the Colby Covington vs. RDA fight hadn’t happened yet. I wasn’t very sure who was going to win that fight. But yeah, now that it is done and over with I absolutely think that RDA would be an awesome fight. I think that would be a lot of fun. Either one of those guys (Lawler or RDA) would be awesome for my next fight.”

Who would you like to see Stephen Thompson fight next? Sound off PENN Nation!