Darren Till will not get a warmup in his middleweight debut. Instead, the long-time welterweight has been booked to battle the middleweight division’s fourth-ranked fighter, Kelvin Gastelum, at UFC 244 in New York.<\/p>\n
This booking comes as a bit of a surprise, given that Till is riding back-to-back stoppage losses, and UFC President Dana White recently admitted<\/a> that the promotion might have pushed the young striker along too quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cI think after the win over Cowboy, I pushed him a little soon. It happens,\u201d White told\u00a0ESPN<\/a>. \u201cSometimes when a guy gets that much steam behind them, pump the brakes a little here, and let him get back and work on the things he needs to work on.”<\/p>\n Matching Darren Till up with one of the world’s best middleweights in his divisional debut seems like a contradiction to this comment, but White has not regrets about making the matchup.<\/p>\n He responded to the widespread criticism surrounding this Till vs. Gastelum booking after the final episode of Contender Series on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n