Stephen Thompson Comments On Darren Till Sparring Video

Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson has given his thoughts on the sparring video that Darren Till released last week ahead of their fight at UFC Liverpool.

Till released a video on his Instagram that showed him working over one of his sparring partners and dropping him to the mat with a left hand. The video got a mixed reaction from the MMA community with many questioning the quality of the sparring partner in the firing line.

Speaking with the Slip n’ Dip podcast this past week, Till’s opponent at UFC Liverpool Thompson gave his reaction to the footage.

“Yeah I did see that,” Thompson said. “To be honest with you, from what I saw, from the footage, it looked like his opponent had no idea what he was doing.

“I don’t know if that’s what you guys took of it, but you know, when you are sparring someone like Darren Till, it just looked like was playing with him.

“You should be wearing and sparring with headgear. You should be sparring with headgear at all times. Not just to protect yourself, but to protect your opponent as well.”

Thompson then went on to explain that his approach to sparring is much different to Till’s and that at his gym, he uses more safety equipment to ensure both the safety of himself and his sparring partners.

“I’ve been to a lot of gyms where they spar with small gloves,” Thompson. When I spar, I wear 18-oz. gloves. It feels like I’m wearing pillows on my hands, but I don’t use them myself, I use them to protect my sparring partners.

“If you go out there and beat them up, you know, they aren’t going to stick around for very long, but yeah that’s what it looked like.

“I don’t know if he was an amateur fighter or a pro fighter, but from what it looked like he was just playing with the guy.

“I felt bad for him to be honest with you.“

You can get an inside perspective on Darren Till’s training camp here from one of his sparring partners, Tony Moran.

Watch the full interview with Thompson below: