Derek Brunson wants a second crack at Darren Till, and he wants it in Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. Boxing News reported Tuesday that Brunson called out Till for a BKFC rematch. About half an hour later, BJPenn.com floated the same idea on X and asked whether Brunson vs. Till 2 belongs in bare-knuckle.
The pitch is simple enough. Brunson already beat Till once inside the Octagon, finishing him by submission, and now he’s angling to repeat the result with the gloves off. Nothing is official. Neither BKFC nor Till has publicly signed off, and there’s no date, card or venue attached. As of Tuesday, this is a callout and nothing more.
The timing makes sense from Brunson’s side, because Till has had a loud week for the wrong reasons. His BKFC outing with Yoel Romero drew a public roasting from Conor McGregor, who dismissed it as a drab spar. McGregor kept taking shots at Till at the BKFC 96 press conference Saturday night in Scotland. That was also the night McGregor said he’s guaranteed to compete in bare-knuckle once his final UFC fight is done, and claimed the promotion is working toward the biggest attendance for a fight event ever. Whatever you make of that number (he also mentioned two million fans, so make of it what you will), BKFC is clearly the place to be noticed right now, and a fighter with UFC history against one of its newer names is a sellable story.
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Till hasn’t publicly answered Brunson in anything the sources show. MMA Fighting did share a post about him on X Monday with a caption about Till cracking jokes, so he’s at least in a playful mood about something.
Brunson has been plugged in all weekend, too. He was among the fighters reacting live to Johnny Walker’s TKO (punches) of Waldo Cortes Acosta at 2:27 of Round 3 in the UFC Vegas 124 main event, writing on X that it was criminal for a fight that good to happen at the Apex. Fair point, honestly. Walker got hurt multiple times, lost the first two rounds on two cards and still found the finish.
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My take: I’d watch this, but Brunson should know what he’s asking for. BKFC takes the choke off the table entirely. There’s no clinch-to-back-take, no ride, no finishing sequence on the mat, which means the skill set that ended the first fight doesn’t exist under these rules. If Brunson wants to say he beat Till twice, he has to do it standing in front of him with wrapped fists for every second of every round. That’s a far riskier fight for him and a far more interesting one for us. Till, meanwhile, needs something to wash out the Romero reviews, and a rematch with the man who submitted him in the UFC is the cleanest storyline BKFC could hand him. If the promotion is serious about riding McGregor’s momentum into 2027, this is the kind of fight it books for the undercard of whatever McGregor’s people are building.
