Darren Till Picks Israel Adesanya Despite Fearing “Monster” Yoel Romero

Darren Till

Top middleweight contender Darren Till has revealed he is picking Israel Adesanya to beat Yoel Romero in the UFC 248 main event.

The 27-year-old from Liverpool, England believes Adesanya will defend his title over five hard rounds but didn’t rule out Romero causing the upset. Partly due to his “fear” of getting on the wrong side of the Cuban middleweight

Speaking to MMA journalist Jim Edwards Till said. “Adesanya is on a roll and I think he may just take it. I don’t think he will stop him. I think it will be a fought five rounds. Yoel is very capable of an upset. I don’t want to piss off Yoel. He’d f*cking kill me. He’s a monster.”

READ MORE:  Kayla Harrison accused of turning down UFC 303 return despite calls for title fight: 'Stop running'

This is the latest in a long line of jokes surrounding Romero someone Till sees as “too scary” to fight. It first started when Till took to his Instagram and posted a picture of Romero calling for a fight by tagging the UFC 248 main event fight and caption the image “Lets go”.

READ MORE:  Anthony Smith rekindles rivalry with UFC star Alex Pereira, eyes future fight: 'I would stand in the fire with him'

A day later he hilariously backtracked on the call out and claimed to have had a few too many drinks the night before. Till took to Instagram again to withdraw his call out. He posted a meme that read “When you wake up, and realize you called out Yoel Romero.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4mo_OWFGd4/?utm_source=ig_embed

It’s this type of social media game that has turned ‘The Gorilla’ into one of the most popular fighters in the sport. Whilst his performances in the cage have him on the cusp of a second UFC title shot – this time at 185lbs.

In his middleweight debut Till faced Kelvin Gastelum who was coming off his fight of the year candidate with Adesanya. Whilst the New Zealander struggled with Gastelum, Till handily dealt with him, using his technical striking to outpoint his man over three rounds. Since then he has been waiting for his next fight date and trying to sort out visa issues which are preventing him from travelling or fighting stateside.

READ MORE:  Sean O'Malley confident fight with Ryan Garcia will be set after two more UFC outings: 'I'm not there yet'

Is Darren Till right to pick Israel Adesanya over Yoel Romero at UFC 248?