Former welterweight title contender Stephen Thompson has given his take on the controversy involving Darren Till.
The rising UFC welterweight prospect recently posted a video of himself sparring against an unknown training partner. This led to people ripping Till for bullying the downed training partner online.
Till is slated to take on the former welterweight title contender at the upcoming UFC Liverpool event. Till has gone on record in previous interviews that after he beats Thompson, he plans to fight a top contender and get one step closer to a title shot.
Thompson has given his thoughts on the sparring video that his next opponent has released during a recent appearance on the Slip n’ Dip podcast (transcript courtesy of MMANytt).
“Yeah I did see that,” Thompson said. “To be honest with you, from what I saw, from the footage, it looked like his opponent had no idea what he was doing. I don’t know if that’s what you guys took of it, but you know, when you are sparring someone like Darren Till, it just looked like was playing with him. You should be wearing and sparring with headgear. You should be sparring with headgear at all times. Not just to protect yourself, but to protect your opponent as well.”
“I’ve been to a lot of gyms where they spar with small gloves,” Thompson. When I spar, I wear 18-oz. gloves. It feels like I’m wearing pillows on my hands, but I don’t use them myself, I use them to protect my sparring partners.
“If you go out there and beat them up, you know, they aren’t going to stick around for very long, but yeah that’s what it looked like. I don’t know if he was an amateur fighter or a pro fighter, but from what it looked like he was just playing with the guy. I felt bad for him to be honest with you.“
UFC Liverpool is set to take place on May 27, 2018, at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.
The main card will air on FOX Sports 1 while the preliminary card will be split broadcasted on FOX Sports 1 at and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
What are your thoughts on Thompson’s comments? Sound off in the comment section below.
