It was a regular old Tuesday in August, a full seven weeks out from fight night. A simple enough thing, really. Darren Till walked forward for his first BKFC 94 faceoff with Yoel Romero, which is standard fare when promoting a fight like their Sept. 26 bare-knuckle showdown. Till stood in front of the “Soldier of God” in an upright posture, arms dangling at his sides as Romero, wearing sunglasses, burned a hole through Till’s navel with his eyes.
Then, as if being brought to life by some primal instinct, his head slowly rose to meet Till’s gaze.
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Because of the height disparity, Romero had to cock his head at a slight angle, like a cannon taking aim at some distant tree line. Romero chewed his gum, which was the only break from the stillness. Once their locked eyes, both fighters held.
Within 10 seconds of this stare-off, David Feldman, the president of the BKFC, perhaps feeling ill at ease within what was already an unbearable tension, clapped his hands together and told them to face the cameras. All good then, he thought, averting his attention the way a guilty dog might who’s caught sneaking things off a plate. But when Feldman looked back up, both fighters were still engaged in the stare down, hypnotists in a battle of will.
“Yoel’s a scary guy,” Till tells Uncrowned of the escalation. “I think we’re all in agreement he’s scary. But I’m a fighter’s fighter. I’m not scared of any man when it comes to fighting. I’m really not.”
Feldman shot his head back and forth as if to comfort himself against the psychic pall, and then fixated on Romero as the Cuban began to lift his arms.
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Ever so deliberately, Romero took off his sunglasses to bring out his eyes. If he were Medusa, Till would’ve turned to stone right then and there in Manchester. If he were blind, Till would’ve stared into the milky galaxies of his mind in that moment, left to guess at the depths swirling underneath. Romero was seeing right through Till. No, seeing directly into him, in the same manner he peered into the souls of all of us during that ESPN bit, when he told us in a threatening way, “Everything is possible in your life when you believe.”
Believe.
“I was just basically showing him that I might be a younger guy than him and all that — I think he called me a kid in the press conference,” Till says. “But I’m not scared of him. I’m like, ‘I’m certainly not scared of fighting you at all, Romero.’ No fear strikes into my heart. Obviously we get nervous and stuff like that, which is natural, but I’m certainly not scared of Yoel Romero, and I want to show him that.”
It was Nietzsche who said, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” That abyss is all consuming. Of voice. Of thought. Of all things rational. Within oblivion, security becomes everlasting hum.
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Now they are closer, close enough to feel each other’s breath. Close enough to scare up courage or snuff out cowardice. So close that Feldman’s security team moved in closer, too, temples pulsing at where things were heading.
Darren Till won his BKFC debut against Aaron Chalmers by second-round knockout. (Photo credit: BKFC)
“Finally, we see Yoel Romero and Darren Till,” the emcee belted out, and yet neither man blinked. Gum smacked. Feldman tapped their backs as to say, c’mon now fellas, that’s good enough. Till stared straight ahead, as one might into a magic picture.
As one might an omen.
Into the blacks of Romero’s eyes. Into his religious scaffoldings. The conflicts of doing bodily harm. Into traumas that didn’t break him, but instead made him stronger. No man should be fighting at age 49, much less with the bare knuckle. No man should be so sadistic as to not recognize his own mortality, yet here was Romero.
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Unflinching. Unyielding. Deadpan dinosaur energy.
Feldman flashed some hands to the two security guards, as if to say “it’s OK boys” as they sensed their own necessity coming into play through the tension, anticipating a spill-over. Feldman was now part of the struggle, the ringleader lost in the vortex. Down the rapids he went, as he grabbed both by their shoulders and tried to physically turn them toward the camera.
Please guys, that’s good enough.
Nothing doing. Both held. Romero chewed his gum, Till refusing to look away.
“I think it got to the point there where I wasn’t listening to David,” Till says. “No one was going to turn me around. If he wants to carry on staring, I was going to carry on staring, and I wasn’t turning away. And this wasn’t like sometimes when you see an analyst saying, ‘Oh, he lost the faceoff.’ I don’t believe in all that stuff because I don’t think that translates into the fight.
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“But this was just a time for me just to be like, ‘Look, mate, I’m not turning away. You are not turning away. We’re going to fight. You better believe I’m going to be showing up the 26th of September. So it was just my own thing. You’ve just called me a kid, but I ain’t no kid standing in front of you, mate. I’m ready to go with you.”
Yoel Romero remains a terrifying figure even at age 49.
(Cooper Neill via Getty Images)
The music played on. The ring girls, standing arms akimbo behind the staring contest, lost their smiles. One of them flashed some duck lips, just to pry herself free of the brutal monotony. Feldman now let his hands grab the necks of his fighters, a nudge for everyone to please snap out of it. When that didn’t work, he patted their backs as if to say, “you ornery lads have a mind of your own!”
Finally Romero started talking, a few choice words. Till remained perfectly still, an old bayonet lost in the lagoon. Now Feldman pried them apart, and the security guards grabbed Romero’s shoulders. Romero protested, while Till’s arm shot out, silently, as to tell everyone to let it play out. The devil hadn’t had his say. And everyone stood idle as Romero and Till continued to stare into each other’s souls.
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Poor Feldman.
Poor, poor Feldman clapping his hands repeatedly to break the trance. Smiling as the victim of a prank. Romero removed his gum, and on it went. The music ended. Those gathered in Manchester stirred. They tried to turn the lights on and send everyone home, but still they stared. Till looking into Romero the way the shaman looks into the fire.
What was going through his mind?
“It’s just that I’m ready,” he says. “I’m ready now and I’ll be ready on the 26th. I’m just letting you know that I’m ready. Just as simple as I can put it, I’m ready. I’m ready now if you wanted me to be. And I’m ready the 26th of September. I’m a fighter’s fighter. I’m born to do this shit. So I was ready and I’m sure he was as well.”
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The emcee signed off. “Darren Till. Yoel Romero. Don’t miss it. We’ll see you September 26th,” he yelled.
He was done yet Till and Romero weren’t. Even as Feldman now came between them, patting Romero’s rib cage as if to say, “there’s a good boy,” the eyes didn’t unlock. The security in Manchester pulled Till back, but his eyes stayed in on Romero. They looked through the security guards, unrelenting. Even as they ushered Till out of frame, his eyes never left the pupils of Romero, and Romero never budged.
All told it was more than three minutes, this epic faceoff, but it felt like three weeks. What ground was ceded? What battles were won in the initial clash of wills?
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“I don’t think it translates into the fight,” Till says. “I think obviously it shows a level. He knows I’m not scared now, after facing off with me. Well, I’m sure he knows, and obviously I know the same.
“But no, I don’t go off a faceoff and think, ‘Oh, now he’s scared, maybe I’ve got the fight won.’ None of that. As soon as that faceoff was done and over, one hour after that, I didn’t think about it again. Obviously it was all over social media and stuff like that. But no, I don’t think a faceoff can be won, that a fight can be won with faceoffs. I don’t truly believe that myself.”
