Darren Till is taking offense to something that Khabib Nurmagomedov said recently.
Darren Till and Khamzat Chimaev have quickly become best friends. The two top UFC fighters began training together about a year ago and have been virtually inseparable since. Till trained with Chimaev in his home gym and then the two went to Vegas to train together. They have been seen doing good deeds like helping the homeless together and getting a bit rowdy and partying it up. This past weekend as Chimaev missed weight for his UFC 279 bout against Nate Diaz, he jokingly blamed his good friend Till.
Following the weight cut fail, Chimaev posted a meme of himself and Till overweight and blamed Till for the botched cut. Of course this was a joke, but it led Khabib Nurmagomedov to chime in.
@darrentill2 It’s his fault 😂 pic.twitter.com/chmZTZ7ctc
— Khamzat Chimaev (@KChimaev) September 9, 2022
Chimaev and Nurmagomedov are both of the Muslim faith and may be two of the most prominent Muslim fighters in the world. Nurmagomedov feels that Chimaev should be surrounded by Muslim people in order to keep him accountable and out of trouble. He feels that if Chimaev had Muslim people in his corner he would have made weight. Till, who has been there with Chimaev every step of the way has reacted to these comments.
“I saw Khabib sort of like saying Khamzat doesn’t have good people around him, now I get like the Muslim faith and I’ve got some very close Muslim friends here in Liverpool and abroad or in Dubai and stuff like that and I just don’t like him saying, I don’t know if he is directing it at me or some of Khamzat’s other team, coaches, teammates, whatever there’s a few of us who aren’t Muslim. Now I don’t like it because I’ve only got Khamzat’s best interest,” Till said. “Khabib had missed weight like five times, he’s got good people around him and we’re not coming out now saying, what because me and Khamzat have a bit of fun on camera, get a little bit wild, does that mean that I’m not good people, so his coaches aren’t good people?”
Till knows that he and Chimaev are doing the right things in their camp. He admitted that there was an error in the weight management in the lead-up to this fight but shoots it right back at Nurmagomedov who also had a history of weight troubles throughout his career.
“As much as I do respect Khabib as a person or a fighter, I just don’t respect him coming out with comments like that,” Till said in an interview with ESPN. ” I get it Khamzat was in the wrong for missing weight, but it’s his first little hurdle in this race, and I said to him, he needs to take the hate and take all the criticism, but you can’t start coming out like that, ike he doesn’t have good people around. How doesn’t he have good people around him, look what he just done to Kevin Holland.”
Till and Chimaev will continue to work together despite what the critics think. It is unclear at this time if Chimaev will be moving up to middleweight or remaining at welterweight for the time being. He has expressed interest in pursuing both.
