PHOTO | Darren Till Trashes Stephen Thompson in a Father and Son Comic

In the midst of all the injuries and bad news yesterday, there was a silver lining in the dark clouds. Dana White revealed that Stephen Thompson was going to fight surging welterweight Darren Till. We all joined hands and rejoiced, until Thompson said it was the first time he even heard of the match-up. The former two-time title challenger opts instead to fight the winner or loser of Rafael dos Anjos and Robbie Lawler‘s upcoming top contender bout, provided his thumb injury is all healed up. Darren Till jumped on Twitter today to tell the world what he thought of the whole thing.

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— Darren Till (@darrentill2) November 9, 2017

“These fighters kill themselves with aspirations of being a bonafide, legit champion and work to get up to the level to do that. ‘Wonderboy’ is one of those guys. If rankings don’t matter anymore then get rid of the title belts and match the fights for the fans and the money, but pay them some real money. That being said, Till needs to fight his way up just like ‘Wonderboy’ did. When he takes out the Jake Ellenbergers, Johny Hendricks’, Robert Whittakers, Rory MacDonalds and so on, we can talk about fighting.” — Ray Thompson speaking to MMA Fighting. 

Of course, Darren Till brought Thompson’s father and devout coach into the matter. So far, Stephen Thompson and Colby Covington have both decided they were not interested in fights with Till, who just knocked out Cowboy Cerrone and shot up in the rankings. Both Covington and Thompson are coming off high profile wins and are angling to get as close to the title as possible. It makes sense that both of them would not take the risk of against the lower ranked, hard-hitting Scouser. Who can forget that confrontation between him and Mike Perry though? If nothing else, that fight can always get made.

“No man, not at all [interested in fighting Darren Till] to be honest. I️ haven’t even thought of him. I’ve been thinking of Robbie Lawler or [Rafael Dos Anjos]. People ate that cake up real quick last night and I was like, ‘What the heck? I never said I️ would fight him.'” — Stephen Thompson to BJPenn.com.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 11/9/2017.