Till vs Thompson: Post-Fight Thoughts

First of all, no matter how you scored this fight or whoever you thought won, this fight was not a robbery. I predicted that Stephen Thompson would defeat Darren Till by unanimous decision, and when the final bell rang, I still thought the same thing. I felt confident that Wonderboy took rounds 1,3, and 4, while Till took 2 and 5. I can completely understand a 48-47 scorecard for Till, but two 49-46's for Till seems a bit inappropriate. I know the post-fight statistics actually favor Till, but just watching the fight, round by round, and using the (stupid) scoring system currently in place, it looked like Thompson won the fight. After perusing social media for the next hour or so, it looked to be about a 55-45 split, meaning roughly 55% of people thought Thompson won, and 45% thought Till. Obviously this is way to close to say Wonderboy was robbed, but something here just reeks, with this being in Liverpool and the two 49-46's.

Now, if we want to base this on the grounds of, like, a fight fight, Till definitely won. For the three rounds I scored for Wonderboy, he took the rounds simply based on the amount of strikes he landed being greater than Till's, significant or not. Till, on the other hand, I thought won his rounds much more decisively than Wonderboy. In round two, Till landed more leg kicks than in any other round I believe, and it showed. Wonderboy changed his stance a couple of times, and we could all see the welt on his thigh getting darker and darker. This was the only visible damage dealt during the fight, and it was in Till's favor. In addition to this, Till scored the only knockdown of the fight, thus he was the closest to actually finishing the fight. Till was never in any clear danger, while Thompson was forced to survive a strike that floored him. Simply based on these observations, Till clearly won, and I think this is how the UFC and MMA in general should score their fights. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think there will be much resistance if PRIDE scoring were to be implemented. If PRIDE scoring is in place for this fight and all fights, and I wish it was, Till wins, and there is no debate about it. To be clear, I'm not calling for PRIDE rules to be implemented, although it would be cool in my opinion, I'm simply calling for a PRIDE-like judge scoring system to be implemented because it would remove most of the ambiguity behind judges' decisions. The fight is simply scored as a whole, not round by round. If things were my way, it was a close fight, but Till should be declared the victor, and he was. But since we score it like boxing, for some reason, I believe the decision was incorrect.

As it pertains to Darren Till, I underestimated him, for sure. I thought he would be chasing Wonderboy all night, running into moving-away punches, and side-kicks. I anticipated him getting frustrated and trying to get Wonderboy to the mat. Till showed intelligence, patience, maturity, and striking prowess that I didn't think he possessed. Sure, he ate some jabs and some straight punches to the body, but he stayed calm the whole time and eventually beat Wonderboy at his own game. After watching this fight, regardless of what you or I think the outcome should have been, Till is going to be a huge problem in the welterweight division for a long time. Till never missed weight before this fight, and apparently he was in and out of the hospital to be with his pregnant girlfriend, which prevented him from making weight on Saturday. Therefore, I won't consider the weight cut a problem for Till moving forward, unless, of course, he screws up again. The only ranked fighters in the division that I can conceivably see beating Till right now are Tyron Woodley and maybe Kamaru Usman. Woodley is so smart and so well rounded that he should be favored against anyone and everyone in the division, and Usman's style, boring as it may seem, has proven to be extremely difficult for opposing fighters to deal with. Other than that, after beating Wonderboy, it's hard to see a ton of resistance to the 25 year old Till moving forward in the welterweight division. 

As for Stephen Thompson, I don't believe this loss will affect him as harshly as some may think, in terms of rankings. Sure, he lost, but he lost to a young and supremely talented fighter who appears to be on his way to being one of the future faces of the UFC. Plus, if they ran this back, who's to say Wonderboy couldn't win a rematch? Thompson did acknowledge a problem with his leg or knee post-fight, and I can't see anyone being silly enough to call him out, so I anticipate him being out until mid fall or so. Therefore, I believe he's going to be stuck in a sort of gate-keeper role for the near future, unfortunately. I believe he'll be matched up with the loser of Colby Covington vs RDA, or Robbie Lawler at some point, should Wonderboy choose to continue to fight, as he is already 35. These are all very winnable match-ups for Thompson, but it's especially tough now to see a road back to the belt for him. He's still definitely a top 3-4 welterweight in the UFC, but with Woodley as champ and Till presumably now ahead of him, there might not be a whole lot left for him at 170 in the UFC. That said, the belt is cool and all, but Wonderboy doesn't need it to be successful or for people to like him. Regardless of what his future holds in the UFC, he's a tough fight for anyone, and I'm still going to watch him do his thing. Plus, he's a really nice guy, so there's that.