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Darren Till was the underdog against Kelvin Gastelum in his Middleweight debut but still managed to secure a victory. While it wasn't the most exciting fight, Till executed his gameplan perfectly and managed to outpoint Gastelum to secure a split decision victory.
The decision itself was controversial since one judge scored the contest 30-27 in favor of Gastelum when it was clearly not the case. Either way, Till has now entered the top 5 of the Middleweight division and will only ascend further if his winning streak continues.
He has some interesting match-ups awaiting him and the recently dethroned Middleweight king Robert Whittaker was full of praise for Till's performance against Gastelum.
On his podcast Grange TV, Whittaker said (h/t BJPenn.com):
“Till was landing a lot of clean shots. I think that he was nullifying a lot of Gastelum’s striking, because he was stepping out on the jab, dropping his level on the two, and then turning it into the clinch."
Whittaker also went on to describe Till's performance as "beautiful":
“I think it was beautiful. I think Till came in with a great gameplan, I think he executed it perfectly, because Gastelum is a super underrated, super, super dangerous fighter.”
Whittaker continued by saying that Till looked even better than he did at Welterweight and is only going to improve since he doesn't have to deal with a harsh weight cut anymore. Whittaker insisted that this was Till's debut at 185 and he will only get better with time.
The Reaper would be a really interesting match-up for Till in the future. Since Paulo Costa will be out for most of 2020, Yoel Romero is the name being considered to challenge Israel Adesanya. However, Dana White insisted that Romero needs to win another fight first, and Jared Cannonier is the logical opponent for him to face.
As for Till, this would leave him with Whittaker as the only other higher-ranked opponent he could possibly face.
Would you like to see the Australian and the Brit go at it? Voice your thoughts in the comments below!
