Darren Till offers useful advice to Sean O’Malley
UFC middleweight contender Darren Till has shared some great advice with rising bantamweight contender and piping hot prospect Sean O’Malley, whose hype-train was brought to a screeching halt against Marlon Vera in the co-main event of UFC 252.
The stoppage loss against Vera was Sean O’Malley's first inside the cage and put an end to the latter's unbeaten record. Watching Sean O’Malley fall to Vera reminded Darren Till about his struggles inside the Octagon and the Englishman decide to share some useful advice with Sean O’Malley on how to handle such setbacks.
“You always have to give credit,” Darren Till said on Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast, pointing at Sean O’Malley’s somewhat sour post-fight comments about Vera (via MMA Fighting). “I really like Sean and I think he’s gonna be good, but you got beat, man. Take your loss, have respect, you will be a champion yet in the future, but don’t start calling the guy who just beat you a journeyman. I’m not throwing disrespect at him,” Till continued.
Darren Till also mentioned the two reasons why he thinks Sean O’Malley needs to mend his ways and respect his opponents even after tasting defeat at their hands. Till said that he believes Sean O’Malley needs to do a much better job of handling defeats.
“I think he’s a good fighter, but there’s two things that stuck out in my mind. One, is the way that he lost [with his ankle] and it just makes me think that I fought three complete rounds with a torn MCL. My knees are f*cked. I know what I had to fight with for those three rounds. I couldn’t use what I’m best at. I’m a master of movement and I couldn’t do it. I was there. There was no way I was going. Even when Rob took me down, I was in so much pain and I was like, ‘Get back up, get back up, get back up.’"
“Number two, I just think the way he’s handling it after the fight, ‘Oh, he’s a journeyman, I’m gonna be a champion,’ mate, just take the loss. Give the respect and you’ll be a champion. Just forget all of that.”