Darren Till Outpoints Yoel Romero in Bare-Knuckle War in Manchester

Darren Till is two-for-two in bare-knuckle. On Sept. 26 at the AO Arena in Manchester, the former UFC welterweight and middleweight beat Yoel Romero by unanimous decision, three judges all seeing it 49-46 in a catchweight headliner that aired live on DAZN. The clean sweep pushed Till to 2-0 in the discipline and dropped Romero to 1-2.

The scores flatter the ease of it, though. Till controlled the tempo for long stretches, but the fight's most dramatic moment nearly went the other way: a Romero left hand clipped Till in the closing seconds of round three and put him down on a knee just as the horn sounded. Take that late knockdown out of the equation and every card still lands firmly with Till.

How It Played Out

Till used his size early, working behind a straight left and mixing in combinations, though plenty of his heavier shots came up short against a low, patient Romero. The Cuban stayed compact and looked for one opening, digging to the body in the third and throwing wild swings that Till mostly read. That round three flurry was Romero's high point.

From there, the read on Till got murkier. He opened round four with a cut leaking under his right eye and spent chunks of the back half tied up in the clinch without doing much damage. By the fifth he was noticeably busier, pressing forward like a man who thought he might need a finish, but the work never translated into anything that hurt Romero before both men traded wildly at the final bell.

Where This Leaves Till

It's a tidy result on paper, and a reminder of how far Till has traveled. His last outing under the UFC banner ended with a third-round neck crank submission against Dricus Du Plessis, capping a rough run inside the Octagon where he finished 18-5-1 with 10 knockouts. Bare-knuckle has been kinder so far.

Beating a 48-year-old Romero, whose own combat resume speaks for itself, isn't the same as beating him in his prime. But a unanimous decision over a name like that, in front of a home crowd, keeps Till relevant and keeps the bare-knuckle project rolling. Two fights, two wins. He'll take it.