Leon Edwards ups the ante on Darren Till: ‘Stop being a p*ssy and let’s fight’
UFC

Leon Edwards ups the ante on Darren Till: ‘Stop being a p*ssy and let’s fight’

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His callout at UFC London on Saturday apparently wasn’t quite strong enough.

So Leon Edwards has made things a bit more pointed in his attempts to get a fight with Darren Till.

“Stop being a p*ssy and let’s fight, right?” the surging welterweight said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “You said you’re the greatest of all-time, let’s prove it.”

It’s not too hard to understand why Edwards wants this fight. The Birmingham, England resident by way of Jamaica has won five straight bouts and seven of his past eight.

Till, for his part, is 4-0-1 in the UFC.

Despite the comparable records, Till has become the UFC’s golden boy in their attempt to find their next big U.K star as future Hall of Famer Michael Bisping heads toward the exits, while Edwards has instead been made to take the long road to the top.

And with Till announced for the main event of a May 27 card in Liverpool, against an opponent to be named later, Edwards thinks this would be a fine chance to prove his worth.

“If you look at my path and look at his path, to get to here, my path is way harder fights,” Edwards said. “Nobody knows, except for Donald Cerrone. I knew going in there that I’m going for Top 10, I’m going for Till. So, like I said, Liverpool is only an hour away, it’s an hour drive down the road [from Birmingham].”

Edwards displayed a finisher’s touch at UFC London, raining down punches on Peter Sobotta over the fight’s closing seconds until the bout was waved off at the 4:59 mark of the final round. Edwards says that while he was going all-out trying to get the finish, he wasn’t aware of the stoppage until well after the bout was waved off, as he had assumed things had gone the distance.

“I kept pounding and pounding and I thought the bell went off, but my coaches went ‘nah, they stopped the fight,’” Edwards said. “So I didn’t know they stopped the fight until after the bell. But yeah, I was 100 percent looking for the finish but he wasn’t moving. It was good getting the finish the last second of the fight.”

As is, it was a minor miracle Edwards even made it to the cage in the first place. Several weeks out from the fight, things weren’t looking so good, as Edwards came down with chicken pox which kept him bedridden nearly two weeks.

“Prior to the fight week I was ill, I came down with the chicken pox, so two weeks, I was in bed for two weeks recovering,” Edwards said. “In the last 10 days into fight week, I recovered and was able to cut weight and so yeah. ... It was terrible, it was terrible. It was all over my face and body, it was madness.”

Either way, Edwards got the job done at UFC London. And with five consecutive victories, he’s ready to step up and make his name against one of the welterweight division’s top fighters.

Edwards knows he’s not the UFC’s top choice for a matchup with Till, as he’s heard the UFC is trying to match him with Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson.

But whether or not he gets his first choice, Edwrds is done playing around with the division’s lesser lights.

“I’m on a five-fight win streak,” he said. “I’ve beaten all the guys they’ve given me, these so-called up-and-coming guys. I’ve beaten them easily, so hopefully they’ll start to get behind me now and start pushing me and give me a top 10 fight.”