Darren Till was hoping to secure a future UFC middleweight title shot by scoring a win over Derek Brunson this afternoon in Las Vegas.

Till (18-4-1 MMA) was returning to the Octagon for the first time since July of 2020, where he had suffered a unanimous decision loss to former middleweight kingpin Robert Whittaker. Prior to that setback, the Liverpool native was coming off a split-decision win over Kevlin Gastelum in his 185lbs debut.

Meanwhile, Derek Brunson (23-7 MMA) had entered today’s main event with Darren Till sporting a four-fight winning streak, his latest being a unanimous decision victory over Kevin Holland. The 37-year-old had not suffered defeat since being TKO’d by reigning UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya way back in 2018.

Unfortunately for Till his plans of returning to the UFC win column were abolished by Brunson this afternoon. The American was able to utilize his strong wrestling skills to smother and frustrate the Liverpool native throughout the contest, this before eventually earning a fight-ending rear-naked choke submission in round three.

Today’s setback served as Darren Till’s fourth in his past five fights, with three of those four losses coming by way of stoppage. During that rough stretch ‘The Gorilla’ has dropped bouts to Tyron Woodley, Jorge Masvidal, Robert Whittaker and now of course Derek Brunson.

Despite now being out of the title mix at 185lbs, the former UFC welterweight title challenger in Darren Till is not giving up hope. The British standout took to his Instagram page shortly following today’s loss where he shared photos of two fighters who never gave up hope and went on to become UFC champions.

As seen above, Darren Till shared photos of both Michael Bisping and Charles Oliveira following their memorable UFC title wins.

Bisping and Oliveira each had to battle through adversity before ultimately claiming UFC gold and it is clear that Till plans to follow suit.

Do you think Darren Till we eventually go on to challenge for the UFC middleweight title? Share your thoughts in the comment section PENN Nation!