Geo’s Weekly Round-Up

Geo’s Weekly Round-Up

By Geo Youngson 

Darren Till

Been a bit of a PR disaster this week for Darren Till. It started with a media scrum where he was trying to show, I would guess, how focused he is on his upcoming title fight.

Instead he left most people shaking their heads and probably lost a bit support.

“I’ve got a girlfriend who’s seven months pregnant, I don’t really care. I’ve got a daughter in Brazil who I haven’t seen for a year, I don’t really care. I just care about legacy and greatness. That’s what I’m in this for.”

It probably didn’t come across the way it was intended but when you are in the spotlight, words count.

And then later on in the week a video surfaced of Till being involved in some sort of street skirmish. We have no real context but it’s not a good look.

GSP to return again?

Georges St Pierre has said he is interested in another heroic comeback, this time against the winner of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor. Now although Dana White has publicly said they have no interest in the fight, we know the company needs big fights that generate money and GSP is a BIG draw.

I suppose one issue might be not wanting to hold up the division with inactive fighters but they will be in that exact situation if Conor McGregor wins. We will see what happens but if GSP wants back he will be very hard to turn down.

Eddie Alvarez contract

Not much movement on this front. Obviously, Eddie is one of the best in the world and he has options. Dana White has said that if Eddie wants to stay with the UFC that would be great but if he decides his best option is elsewhere then he goes with their best wishes.

Ben Askren to the UFC?

This finally seems to be a realistic possibility. Ben reached out to Dana and asked if they could talk about him fighting in the UFC and Dana said sure, as long as he wasn’t still under contract with One FC. Of course it turns out that Askren is still under contract and that will probably have to be honoured.

There is still a ways to go but at least its friendly dialogue and not some juvenile back and forth name-calling. Have faith people we may just see this yet.

Tuivasa and Pedro rewarded

Heavyweight Tai Tuivasa and light heavyweight Tyson Pedro have signed new 6 fight contracts with the UFC that will keep them with the promotion for the next two or three years at least. I think the UFC see Tai especially as a really promising prospect especially since the heavyweight division is so shallow.

RIZIN

Angela Magana’s fresh start didn’t go the way she planned but probably the way most people expected, losing by submission in her RIZIN debut.

Hatsu Hioki also suffered a upset knockout loss when he got put away by Mikuru Asakura in round one.

Zuffa Boxing

Remember when around about the time Conor was going to be fighting Mayweather and they started making noises about a Dana White run boxing promotion?

There were noises made and rumours. Anthony Joshua was mentioned. It has been quiet for a while and recently when asked Dana said that it hasn’t gone how he planned and things haven’t fallen into place properly.

To me that translates as, Conor didn’t beat Floyd!