Darren Till has made sizable waves already in the early part of his BKFC journey, and a champion within the promotion who prepared Till for his debut has offered his thoughts on Till’s path in gloveless combat so far. Rico Franco is the combatant in question, with ‘Bon Bon’ capturing BKFC gold on the same night that Till made his BKFC debut with a finish in the second stanza over Aaron Chalmers.
Franco bested Connor Tierney in their rematch to win the interim welterweight strap at BKFC 90 in May. Touching on Darren Till authoring a great performance in his promotional debut on the same night that Rico Franco won BKFC gold, Franco said [via Bare Knuckle Bowker],
“We had a good two week camp in Cyprus with Darren [Till]. He brought us out there and we got to be a part of his team as well. Amazing, unbelievable experience getting to train with Darren and his coach and his team. Amazing people and he’s offered to do it again. So after this fight, so we’ll probably go over again to Cyprus and get trained again. But just being around proper fighters all the time and just training, just living it every day.”
“So yeah, that was a great experience and obviously Darren put on a great performance. That was his debut as well. Obviously after he got out that first round, he realized, yeah, I need to switch on in the first round. Like I told him before, I said, this bare knuckle, you’ve got to just switch on straight away. Because one shot can just change the game.”
“Obviously he got caught with a little shot. He just switched off. Second round he come in and he just like, “Yeah, I’m switching on now.” Boom. He just landed that shot and finished it. So, two really good performances which were good. Yeah.”
Darren Till and Rico Franco’s future prospects in BKFC
With Yoel Romero next on the docket, with a possible Mike Perry fight down the line as well for Darren Till, and also touching on his own massive opportunity to get another crack at the lineal BKFC welterweight title vs. current sitting kingpin Dustin Pague at a yet-to-be-decided card, Franco stated [via Bare Knuckle Bowker],
“Yeah, definitely. Obviously Mike Perry would be a massive fight for Darren Till. Perry’s like the face of BKFC, so that makes sense. Everyone wants to tune in and watch that. They’ve had a lot of back and forth over the years. I think everyone wants to fight Perry just for the payday. I’d love to fight him for the payday. I’d go [up] a weight class and everyone; Mike Perry is the face, end of the day. He’s tough as nails.”
“So yeah, that would be a great fight. Obviously Darren; it’d be good to get it all on the same card, me versus Dustin [Pague]. But obviously Darren, he’s not going to fight Perry next. He’ll be fighting another big name, but I’m not sure who yet. That’ll be in September. So hopefully we can bring Pague over to Manchester or anywhere in the UK and we’ll have a massive fight over here. That would be great.”
