Darren Till: Covington didn’t get Woodley fight because ‘he wanted everything on his terms’

It was expected that interim welterweight champion Colby Covington would go on to face official champ Tyron Woodley after his big win over Rafael dos Anjos earlier this year, but the UFC had other ideas.

According to Darren Till, who has been chosen over Covington to challenge Woodley for the welterweight title, ‘Chaos’ was making too many demands and the UFC rejected his offer.

“I believe Colby has missed his opportunity,” Till said on a recent episode of Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show, per BJPenn.com’s Tom Taylor. “It is a sad situation. It’s unfortunate for Colby. He is the rightful owner of the interim belt. He beat [Rafael] dos Anjos, but sometimes you can’t have your cake and eat it.

“He wanted everything on his terms. The UFC didn’t want that, so he’ll have to sit out now.”

Till believes Covington couldn’t back up his trash talk and should have kept his mouth shut if he never really intended to challenge Woodley after winning the interim strap vs. dos Anjos.

“You just can’t talk all that much shite about how you’re going to beat this champion, you beat him in sparring and whatever, and then the champ responds, Woodley responds, and the fight just sort of flutters off into the air,” Till continued. “It doesn’t seem to work like that. As soon as Colby beat dos Anjos, Woodley called Colby out. That was there, that was made, Woodley was game, and it just doesn’t happen. So there’s the second guy, me, Darren Till. I’m ready, so that’s all I think about. I don’t give a fuck about any of that shit. I just want to go in there on the eighth of September and prove why I’m the best fighter alive right now.”

The Liverpudlian is confident, to say the least, that he will become the second ever British champion at UFC 228 and does not consider Woodley a real threat.

“Right now, there’s not a man in that [welterweight] division who can fucking beat me,” he said. “There’s just not a man. And it’s certainly not Woodley.”

UFC 228: Woodley vs. Till takes place next month, September 8 at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.