[autotag]Darren Till[/autotag] won’t back down from [autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag]’s threats, but he doubts they will ever meet in the octagon.
What started as banter, including a sparring session in August 2018, has turned into a budding rivalry, and words have gotten ugly between the two fighters.
At one point, Till (18-2-1 MMA, 6-2-1 UFC) and Perry (14-6 MMA, 7-6 UFC) were angling for a fight at welterweight, but their careers have taken different directions, with Perry alternating wins and losses and Till moving up to middleweight.
But since then, Till has been jabbing at Perry on social media, lobbing insults at his new girlfriend, which didn’t sit well with Perry. In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, Perry didn’t mince his words towards Till, claiming that he wanted to “jump kick his mom in the face.”
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Since the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced people indoors, Till has been having a laugh with seemingly everyone on social media, including UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
For him, it was all fun and games and nothing personal, but clearly Perry was not on the same page.
“It was time, nothing to do, one training session a day,” Till told BT Sport. “We were all bored out of our minds. I thought, ‘How can I make this a better experience for everyone who follows me?’ so everyone knows I was having jokes with the champ and that, then having jokes with Mike Perry, took it the wrong way. That’s all I did, and I’ve got a good sense of humor and I know how to write things and word things.”
A fight with Perry is certainly not on Till’s radar, who will look to cement himself as the No. 1 contender at 185 pounds with a win over former UFC champ Robert Whittaker in the main event of UFC on ESPN 14 on Saturday in Abu Dhabi.
So Till thinks Perry is just overreacting and should worry about his own career since he doubts they’ll ever cross paths.
And he warns him that if Perry ever did try and confront him, things wouldn’t go well.
“I think it’s just because he’s got a new girl and stuff that probably little bit offended his sensitivity, but that’s the fight game, mate,” Till said. “You have to be able to take it all on the chin, and he obviously can’t, so he’s talking like next time he sees me, he’s gonna poke me in the eye or something. Come on mate, we both know that’s not gonna happen. I’m 6-foot-2. I’d lift him straight off his feet, but I don’t take offense to it.
“Let him take offense to it. I hope he does well. I hope he gets the fights he wants. He’s never going to fight me. I’m fighting contenders, former champs. He needs to worry about his path first, before he starts worrying about me because he ain’t getting that fight.”
Earlier in the month, a video surfaced showing Perry punching a man outside a restaurant in Lubbock, Texas. A police report was filed, but no arrests were made. According to a statement provided by the UFC, Perry will seek treatment for alcohol dependency before any return to the cage.
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