Darren Till and Yoel Romero have circled one another’s orbit a long time. If Tuesday’s kickoff press conference was any indication, their Sept. 26 bare-knuckle showdown may very well have been worth the wait.
Till and Romero went nose-to-nose for nearly four minutes in a bizarrely tense staredown at the AO Arena on Tuesday in Manchester, England, ahead of their BKFC 94 main-event bout. The two fighters, who first became rivals as UFC contenders in the mid-to-late 2010s, were supposed to share only a brief faceoff but ultimately refused to break eye contact — despite the repeated pleas of BKFC founder David Feldman.
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Romero could be seen whispering to Till throughout the staredown, with Liverpool’s Till refusing to engage and instead intensely keeping the staring contest alive. Feldman and several security staffers finally stepped in around the three-minute mark, however, neither Till nor Romero were deterred, with both men still locking eyes and looking past their interlopers for nearly another minute.
Watch the full faceoff below.
Till (1-0 BKFC) made a big impression in his bare-knuckle debut this past May, surviving an early knockdown before flattening fellow MMA veteran Aaron Chalmers with a brutal second-round knockout at BKFC 90 in Birmingham, England.
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The 33-year-old Englishman first rose to prominence with his run to a UFC welterweight title shot from 2015-18, before eventually exiting the promotion in 2023. Till’s combat sports career then got a second injection of life with a successful four-fight boxing stint, which culminated in a massive knockout of former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold in August 2025 to capture the inaugural Misfits Boxing bridgerweight title.
Romero (1-0 BKFC) made his own successful bare-knuckle boxing debut with BKFC this past September, knocking out Theo Doukaus in the second round at BKFC 80.
An ageless wonder, the 49-year-old Olympic silver medalist was a feared UFC middleweight contender for years, knocking out the likes of Rockhold, Chris Weidman, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Tim Kennedy. Like Till, Romero has competed in a variety of combat sports since his 2020 UFC exit, including a pair of knockout victories in Mike Perry’s Dirty Boxing promotion, two RAF wrestling matches, and most recently a bare-knuckle MMA victory over Alex Nicholson, which ended in a first-round TKO.
David Mundell defends his BKFC middleweight title against UK boxing veteran Jack Cullen in BKFC 94’s co-main event.
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